[sdiy] Female sdiy'ers

[Paul Schreiber]

a) maybe they are tired of being hit on constantly/out-numbered 50:1 in most 
classes. They have "no one" to talk to, other girls think they are 
stuck-up/neerdy as well.

b) in high school, I always had a majority of girls in the top 10% of the 
class (in the '70s). Loking at the local Fort Worth paper (that list all the 
val/sal folks) 65% are women. In fact in my children's high school 7 of the 
top 10 students are women.

c) DIYers like to 'tinker' (hands-on). My experience is women like more 
abtract thinking/problem solving as opposed to messing around on the lab 
bench. Having said that, probably 90% of the electronics/IC assembly in the 
*world* is done by women.

d) 2 girls in my neighborhood are both grad students in aerospace 
engineering. One was the valedictorian 4 years ago at the local high school.

e) at least in the US: women engineers will *never* be unemployed. 
Military/government companies will fall all over themselves to hire them 
(even if they are not all that good). If you are a women AND a minority, 
it's $85,000/yr *starting* pay now.

f) when I was in EE under grad in 1974 we started with 381 students, 4 were 
women. In 1979 the graduation class was 61 people, 1 woman. OK, 1 took 1 
extra year to co-op at Tandy building Trash-80s :) The lone woman got the #1 
desired job (imagine that) even though her class ranking was #11 (I was #27) 
which was designing spy satellites for Rockwell.

Paul S.