December 1998 — Features
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The Cyber Sisters Club: Using the Internet to Bridge the Technology Gap with Inner City Girls
The Gender Divide
The members of the Cyber Sisters Club, daughters of poor minority families, experience another handicap in the world of technology: their gender. A number of recent studies have confirmed the disparity between girls and boys in their technology skills and attitudes. The low number of women who take the Advanced Placement test for computer science, who choose computer science as a field of study and who are employed in technology related fields confirms that computer science is far and away a male dominated world.
Analysts of the gender gap in technology cite societal, psychological and marketing factors. The myth that girls can't excel in science and math stubbornly endures despite many advances by women in these fields. Girls look to their mothers for examples and too often see hesitant and reluctant users of technology. One study polled 10th graders and found that a much higher percentage of girls than boys had never talked with a parent about science and technology issues.
When girls do sit down at a computer, they tend to wait for instructions and blame themselves when something d'esn't work. In contrast, boys often approach technology with an aggressive, experimental attitude, clicking their way to a solution of any problem online. The manual never makes it out of the shrink wrap. The boys develop the confidence which results from an intimate knowledge and mastery of technology.
The instant fascination of boys with video and computer games encouraged software companies to market to them rather than to their more hesitant sisters. From Duke Nukem to Leisure Suit Larry to Total Control Football, the shelves of an Electronics Boutique store attest to a male dominated computer culture. Only recently have women, recognizing the role of these games in stimulating an interest in computers, founded software companies like Girl Tech and Purple Moon devoted to the design of games for girls.
Cyber Sisters Club
The Penn State Cyber Sisters Club was created to bridge the gap between the technologically advantaged and disadvantaged, in this case minority girls from a low income, inner city school. The Club is part of the Youth Enrichment Partnership program, begun in 1990, which provides educational enrichment activities after school and during the summer with a dual emphasis on writing and technology. As part of a Y.E.P. program serving children from a local Federal housing project, the Cyber Sisters Club received funding for its first session this year from the Allentown Housing Authority.
Penn State Lehigh Valley seemed uniquely positioned to launch a program to encourage girls to take part in the technological revolution. At a time when women are the minority in computer related fields, virtually all technology related positions at the campus, including the computer science faculty, network coordinator, instructional design specialist, campus Webmaster, and reference librarian are held by women. These women were invited to visit the Club during meetings to serve as role models, and some volunteered their time to work one-on-one with the girls.
The first group of Cyber Sisters met on seven Thursdays in the spring of 1998.
