Roberta Furger, who writes about computers, was almost out the door when a 14-year-old girl named Margaret pulled her aside, a note of urgency in her voice.
Furger had just spent several hours chatting with six teenage girls who–along with 48 boys–were learning programming at a computer camp near Cambridge, Mass.
At the last minute, Margaret let her in on a secret:
“OK, it’s like this,” Margaret said. “I know guys at my school who are pretty smart and who are really into computers. For them, that’s OK. But when a girl knows a lot about computers, that’s not good. Sure, girls like games. They just don’t talk about it. That wouldn’t be cool.”
Being cool should be the least of their worries.
After nine months of talking to kids, parents and teachers around the country, Furger says girls show a troubling confidence gap at a time when an estimated 60 percent of all new jobs require computer skills.
“Having facility with computers is a life skill now,” said Furger, 37, who analyzes the challenges and possible solutions in “Does Jane Compute?” (Warner, 210 pages, $10.99 paper).
“It’s not a question of, `Do I want to know computers?’ ” she said. “Children now aren’t going to have a choice.”
The middle-school years, when girls typically falter in confidence anyway, are a critical time to intervene. Without support, she said, girls tend to be held back by cultural expectations, a shortage of girl-friendly computer games and their own hesitation to jump in and get messy.
Girl-only computer clubs are one way to boost confidence. Furger describes how a timid 9-year-old named Nadia, the daughter of migrant farm workers, blossomed after learning to surf the Net at her after-school Computer Academy.
Nadia initially was too afraid to make a move without asking if it was OK. Later, she grew so excited about using her school’s new high-speed Internet connection that she volunteered to teach her 3rd-grade class how to go on-line.
“It was phenomenal!” said her teacher.
Other powerful approaches include mentoring by women in high-tech fields and a willingness by adults to let girls trouble-shoot on their own–using a mouse, not being one.
“It’s not really about learning one technology,” said Furger, who was in Seattle on a book tour. “The technology changes every day practically. It’s more an issue of, `I can figure this out.’ That’s really what I’m talking about more than anything else.”
Furger, who lives in the San Francisco area with her husband and two young children, has written extensively about computers for Newsweek, Child, Parenting, PC World and other publications. She spearheaded PC World’s first extended coverage of children’s software, including a special report, “Smart Computing for Kids,” published jointly by PC World and Child magazine.
Although 40 percent of all American households now have a computer, Furger says girls are often on the fringe, waiting for a turn as the males in the family stake their claims.
One computer-camp graduate told Furger she rarely had a chance to use the computer at home. “My two brothers use it all day, every day,” she said, adding that one brother removed her favorite game from the home computer because he “needed more space for his stuff.”
Access to school computers is equally important. Furger says only 4 percent of all American schools have one computer for every five students–the ratio considered adequate to allow regular use by all students.
The national average, she said, is one computer for every nine students and many schools have only one computer per 25 students. When equipment is limited, less assertive students–often girls–get left behind.
Furger thinks girls are hobbled just as much by a shortage of games, the proving ground of future hackers. According to a 1996 Consumer Survey by the Software Publishers Association, 63 percent of all CD-ROM game buyers–and 66 percent of the main users–are male.
Parents may cringe at the hours their sons spend playing “twitch” games on the computer but, Furger says, those free-wheeling hours at the terminal give boys a sense of mastery their sisters often lack.
Instead, girls typically spend most of their computer time sending e-mail and typing school reports–activities Furger says offer less room for exploration and limit-testing.
“For boys, all that time at the computer, even if it’s just playing games, translates into confidence,” Furger says. “They may not know any more than girls, but they feel like they do. They develop this unrealistic sense of their own abilities. Girls, even if they spend hours e-mailing their friends, somehow lack that confidence that boys get.”
Opinion is divided on this issue, however. One Microsoft manager says e-mail and report writing are at least as valuable as games because they build communication skills.
“There’s a lot of different ways you can build confidence,” says Ellen Mosner, education marketing manager for Microsoft’s Interactive Media Group. “Writing school reports is no small thing. You may start doing simple reports on the word processor but you build from that.”
Mosner says students often go on to develop sophisticated multimedia projects that rival anything put out by private industry.
Although software developers have been slow to respond, the software market for girls is opening up. The American Girls Premiere ($34.99), a play-writing program for girls 7 to 12, complete with sound effects, was the top-selling educational software last fall, according to PC Data.
Mattel’s Barbie Fashion Designer opened up the market in 1996, Furger says, becoming one of the year’s best-selling interactive games.
“A lot of women, a lot of parents, have mixed feelings about Barbie as a role model and what she represents,” Furger says. “Yet it was a real cool application. It was very cool technology and it hit home in a lot of ways.”
She says the challenge for software designers is to go beyond traditional female subjects like shopping and dolls while keeping the creative features girls like.
“What girls really like in a game,” Furger says, “is something that lets you explore, something that’s open-ended.”
Purple Moon, a company launched just over a year ago, is a case in point. Last September, Purple Moon unveiled a new line of CD-ROM “adventures for girls,” based on more than two years of research into how to engage girls in games.
The first two titles, designed for girls 8 to 12, are “Rockett’s New School” and “Secret Path in the Forest,” retailing for $29.95 each and backed by a $6 million marketing campaign.
As Purple Moon’s Web site explains, “Rockett’s New School” has 20 characters and 45 plot twists:
“The girls drive the story,” Furger says. “You can choose what you want the character to do and change it. It’s just a whole different way of approaching a game.”
The point is not to turn girls into gamers but to help them click on the relevance and fun of computers. “I think the biggest thing is just awareness of how we treat boys and girls,” Furger says. Ideally, “you give them the opportunities to explore, you give them a baseline confidence level.”
GIRLS CAN CLICK ON TO THESE SITES
Here are some Web sites designed specifically for girls:
– Club Girl Tech
http://www.girltech.com
Includes online games, message boards and “Chick Chat,” plus research on girls and computers.
– NewMoon
http://www.newmoon.org
The Magazine for Girls and their Dreams, written by and for girls.
– Cybergrrl
http://www.cybergrrl.com
Includes links to the Femina search tool and Webgrrls, a national organization for women in Web-related businesses. Many local chapters sponsor events for preteen and teenage girls.
– FreeZone
http://www.freezone.com
Fun site with bright graphics, with girls’ chat rooms and message board areas that are monitored for content, and a parent bulletin board.
– Purple Moon
Girls can chat, create their own page and get more information about the company’s CD-ROM “adventures for girls.”
HOW TO HELP GIRLS BECOME CYBER-SAVVY
Be fair when you divvy up computer time. Put the computer in a room that’s open to everyone, such as a family room or study.
– Encourage exploration. Don’t insist on guiding your daughter through a new computer game or software tool. If it’s well-designed (and many aren’t), a child should be able to navigate on her own.
– Involve your daughter in software purchases. Look for programs with male and female lead characters and varied points of entry. Then let your daughter make the final selection.
– Don’t be bashful, Mom. Don’t wait till the kids are in bed to balance the checkbook, monitor your stocks or play a game. Think “role model.”
– Ask your daughter for help. Get her to show you how to set up an e-mail account or search a topic on the Internet.
– Look for activities you and your daughter can do together. Take a computer class together. Also check out Web sites for hobbies you both enjoy.
– Introduce your daughter to women in technical fields.
– Encourage girls to take high-level math and science courses. Math is the gateway to computer careers. Hire a tutor if necessary. Girls often view anything less than an A as failure, so pour on the encouragement.
– Be savvy about safety and privacy online. Check out the Web sites your kids are visiting and drill them not to give out their name, address or city. Keep an eye on chat rooms, which often ask newcomers for their “stats” such as age, height, weight and other physical characteristics.
