'07/12/05 Something about Women... (Host: Rock)
發表於 : 週五 11月 30, 2007 6:53 pm
Dear YoYos,
HI, I’m Rock. I will be the host of the coming Wednesday. The following articles discuss the rising of women. As we all know, our world has been governed by men for quiet a long time, but things are changing. Women are getting more and more powerful in many fields, some of them are even traditionally dominated by men. Who knows? Maybe the next president of USA can be a female! This will be a good news for women, and can be good for men, too. Someone said that a world controlled by women will be a better world. Do you think so?
Session 1
Women with Money Encounter the Fragile Male Ego on Dates
New York Times, Oct. 1, 2007
By Alex Williams
For Whitney Hess, a 25-year-old software designer in Manhattan, the tension that ultimately ended her recent relationships was right there in the digits on her pay stub.
The awkwardness started with nights out. She would want to try the latest chic restaurant, but her boyfriends, who worked in creative jobs that paid less than hers, preferred less expensive places.
They would say, “Wow, you’re so sophisticated,” she recalled. “They wouldn’t want me to see their apartments,” because they lived in cramped surroundings far from Manhattan.
One of them, she said, finally just came out and said it. “Look,” Ms. Hess recalled him saying, “it makes me really uncomfortable that you make more money than me. I’m going to put that out on the table and try to get over it.”
But he never got over it, she said. “The sad thing is that really liked the guy.”
For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities --- New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis --- are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.
For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.
Professor Beveridge said the gap is largely driven by a gulf in education: 53 percent of women employed full time in their 20s were college graduates, compared with 38 percent of men. Women are also more likely to have graduate degrees. “They have more of everything,” Professor Beveridge said.
Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren’t prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date.
“Very, very early in a date,” said Anna Rosenmann, 28, who founded a company called Eco Consulting LA, in Los Angeles, and earns up to $150,000 a year, “a men will drop comments on how much his sales team had made for the year, which mean his bonus was blah, blah, blah.” But, she said, “that’s not how we were raised.”
Ms. Rosenmann said that dating considerably older men helps her avoid innuendos from younger men who feel the threatened by her professional success.
The discomfort over who pays for what seems to be not really about money, exactly. Instead, it is suggestive of the complex psychology of what many of these women expect from their dates (for him to be a traditional source of financial support) and what they think they should expect (for him to be a nice guy).
On a first date at a lounge in Midtown Manhattan, Thrupthi Reddy, 28, a marketing strategist, watched her date not even flinch when she handed the waitress her credit card. Initially miffed, she recognized her own contradictions.
“You wonder if you’re being a hypocrite,” she recalled, “because all date long I’m telling him how independent I was, and how annoying it was that men wouldn’t date strong independent women.”
QUESTIONS
1. Have you ever encountered a situation like this? Would you accept the “rich women pay the check” policy?
2. According to Professor Beveridge, the income gap is caused by education. Why do women tend to have a higher education? Do you think it’s also true here in Taiwan?
3. Are women going to take over men in the near future?
Session 2
Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold
By CORNELIA DEAN
excerpted from New York Times
April 17, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For decades, undergraduate women have been moving in ever greater numbers into science and engineering departments at American universities. Yet even as they approach or exceed enrollment parity in mathematics, biology and other fields, there is one area in which their presence relative to men is static or even shrinking: computer science.
Women received about 38 percent of the computer science bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in 1985, the peak year, but in 2003, the figure was only about 28 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.
At universities that also offer graduate degrees in computer science, only 17 percent of the field’s bachelor’s degrees in the 2003-4 academic year went to women, according to the Taulbee Survey, conducted annually by an organization for computer science research.
Since then, many in the field say, the situation has worsened. They say computing is the only realm of science or technology in which women are consistently giving ground. They also worry that the number of women is dropping in graduate programs and in industry.
They are concerned about this trend, they say, not just because they want to see young women share the field’s challenges and rewards, but also because they regard the relative absence of women as a troubling indicator for American computer science generally — and for the economic competitiveness that depends on it.
“Women are the canaries in the coal mine,” Lenore Blum, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, told an audience at Harvard University in March, in a talk on this “crisis” in computer science. Factors driving women away will eventually drive men away as well, she and others say.
The big problems, these and other experts say, are prevailing images of what computer science is and who can do it.
“The nerd factor is huge,” Dr. Cuny said. According to a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology, an academic-industry collaborative formed to address the issue, when high school girls think of computer scientists they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.
This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. “They think of it as programming,” Dr. Cuny said. “They don’t think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth.”
Others worry that the field cannot grow to its potential if it lacks women’s perspective. “Does it matter that women’s outlook is missing? I think it does,” Dr. Cuny said. “Technology is pervasive in society, and its impact is only going to increase. Shouldn’t everyone have a voice in shaping the technology?”
For her part, Dr. Ryder said that after working for decades as computer scientists, she and other women in the field were sad not to see more young women joining them. “We’re senior now, and we don’t see who is coming along,” Dr. Ryder said. “For me, this is a professional and a personal frustration.”
QUESTIONS
1. Do you believe that men and women are good in different areas by nature? What are the possible academic strong points and weak points for men and women? For example, do you think that men are tent to be good at math and science, while women are good at literature and arts?
2. Why don’t most girls like computer science? How can we change the situation?
3. Have you ever fixed a computer problem for your girlfriends, or asked your boyfriends to fix it for you? Do you think it’s easy for a girl to learn computer if they want to?
4. Is it a good job for women to work in the IT industry? Why or why not?
Agenda
6:45 or earlier The host (and guests) arriving at the meeting place
6:45 ~ 7:00 Greetings and free talk among members and guests /recording individual orders/getting newcomers’ information
7:00 sharp Beginning of the meeting
7:00 ~ 7:10 Opening remarks/ newcomers self-introduction of /grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50 First discussion session (7:35 Reminding each group of making a review for the speaker)
7:50 ~ 8:00 First summarization
8:00 ~ 8:10 Regrouping and taking a break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:10 ~ 8:40 Second discussion session (8:35 Reminding each group of making a review for the speaker)
8:40 ~ 8:50 Second summarization
8:50 ~ 9:00 Concluding remarks/feedback from newcomers/ announcements
聚會時間：2007/12/5 (星期三) 請準時 6:45 pm 到 ~ 約 9:00 pm 左右結束
聚會地點：日安。KAFFA 北市南京東路三段303巷24號 (02)2719-7895
捷運南京東路站（木柵線）
走法: 出捷運南京東路站後, 順著慶城街直走 3 分鐘到 "萊爾富便利超商" 時, 右轉直走 30 公尺即可看到 "日安。KAFFA"
給新朋友的話：
1. 請事先準備2~3分鐘的英語自我介紹；討論完畢後可能會請你發表1~2分鐘的感想(feedback)。
2. 請事先閱讀討論主題相關內容以及host所提的問題，並事先寫下自己所欲發表意見的英文。
3. 來之前請先讀一下討論主題，思考一下如何回答及討論。
4. 在正式加入之前（繳交可退還之保證金NT$1,000)，可以先來觀摩三次。
HI, I’m Rock. I will be the host of the coming Wednesday. The following articles discuss the rising of women. As we all know, our world has been governed by men for quiet a long time, but things are changing. Women are getting more and more powerful in many fields, some of them are even traditionally dominated by men. Who knows? Maybe the next president of USA can be a female! This will be a good news for women, and can be good for men, too. Someone said that a world controlled by women will be a better world. Do you think so?
Session 1
Women with Money Encounter the Fragile Male Ego on Dates
New York Times, Oct. 1, 2007
By Alex Williams
For Whitney Hess, a 25-year-old software designer in Manhattan, the tension that ultimately ended her recent relationships was right there in the digits on her pay stub.
The awkwardness started with nights out. She would want to try the latest chic restaurant, but her boyfriends, who worked in creative jobs that paid less than hers, preferred less expensive places.
They would say, “Wow, you’re so sophisticated,” she recalled. “They wouldn’t want me to see their apartments,” because they lived in cramped surroundings far from Manhattan.
One of them, she said, finally just came out and said it. “Look,” Ms. Hess recalled him saying, “it makes me really uncomfortable that you make more money than me. I’m going to put that out on the table and try to get over it.”
But he never got over it, she said. “The sad thing is that really liked the guy.”
For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities --- New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis --- are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.
For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.
Professor Beveridge said the gap is largely driven by a gulf in education: 53 percent of women employed full time in their 20s were college graduates, compared with 38 percent of men. Women are also more likely to have graduate degrees. “They have more of everything,” Professor Beveridge said.
Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren’t prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date.
“Very, very early in a date,” said Anna Rosenmann, 28, who founded a company called Eco Consulting LA, in Los Angeles, and earns up to $150,000 a year, “a men will drop comments on how much his sales team had made for the year, which mean his bonus was blah, blah, blah.” But, she said, “that’s not how we were raised.”
Ms. Rosenmann said that dating considerably older men helps her avoid innuendos from younger men who feel the threatened by her professional success.
The discomfort over who pays for what seems to be not really about money, exactly. Instead, it is suggestive of the complex psychology of what many of these women expect from their dates (for him to be a traditional source of financial support) and what they think they should expect (for him to be a nice guy).
On a first date at a lounge in Midtown Manhattan, Thrupthi Reddy, 28, a marketing strategist, watched her date not even flinch when she handed the waitress her credit card. Initially miffed, she recognized her own contradictions.
“You wonder if you’re being a hypocrite,” she recalled, “because all date long I’m telling him how independent I was, and how annoying it was that men wouldn’t date strong independent women.”
QUESTIONS
1. Have you ever encountered a situation like this? Would you accept the “rich women pay the check” policy?
2. According to Professor Beveridge, the income gap is caused by education. Why do women tend to have a higher education? Do you think it’s also true here in Taiwan?
3. Are women going to take over men in the near future?
Session 2
Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold
By CORNELIA DEAN
excerpted from New York Times
April 17, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For decades, undergraduate women have been moving in ever greater numbers into science and engineering departments at American universities. Yet even as they approach or exceed enrollment parity in mathematics, biology and other fields, there is one area in which their presence relative to men is static or even shrinking: computer science.
Women received about 38 percent of the computer science bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in 1985, the peak year, but in 2003, the figure was only about 28 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.
At universities that also offer graduate degrees in computer science, only 17 percent of the field’s bachelor’s degrees in the 2003-4 academic year went to women, according to the Taulbee Survey, conducted annually by an organization for computer science research.
Since then, many in the field say, the situation has worsened. They say computing is the only realm of science or technology in which women are consistently giving ground. They also worry that the number of women is dropping in graduate programs and in industry.
They are concerned about this trend, they say, not just because they want to see young women share the field’s challenges and rewards, but also because they regard the relative absence of women as a troubling indicator for American computer science generally — and for the economic competitiveness that depends on it.
“Women are the canaries in the coal mine,” Lenore Blum, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, told an audience at Harvard University in March, in a talk on this “crisis” in computer science. Factors driving women away will eventually drive men away as well, she and others say.
The big problems, these and other experts say, are prevailing images of what computer science is and who can do it.
“The nerd factor is huge,” Dr. Cuny said. According to a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology, an academic-industry collaborative formed to address the issue, when high school girls think of computer scientists they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.
This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. “They think of it as programming,” Dr. Cuny said. “They don’t think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth.”
Others worry that the field cannot grow to its potential if it lacks women’s perspective. “Does it matter that women’s outlook is missing? I think it does,” Dr. Cuny said. “Technology is pervasive in society, and its impact is only going to increase. Shouldn’t everyone have a voice in shaping the technology?”
For her part, Dr. Ryder said that after working for decades as computer scientists, she and other women in the field were sad not to see more young women joining them. “We’re senior now, and we don’t see who is coming along,” Dr. Ryder said. “For me, this is a professional and a personal frustration.”
QUESTIONS
1. Do you believe that men and women are good in different areas by nature? What are the possible academic strong points and weak points for men and women? For example, do you think that men are tent to be good at math and science, while women are good at literature and arts?
2. Why don’t most girls like computer science? How can we change the situation?
3. Have you ever fixed a computer problem for your girlfriends, or asked your boyfriends to fix it for you? Do you think it’s easy for a girl to learn computer if they want to?
4. Is it a good job for women to work in the IT industry? Why or why not?
Agenda
6:45 or earlier The host (and guests) arriving at the meeting place
6:45 ~ 7:00 Greetings and free talk among members and guests /recording individual orders/getting newcomers’ information
7:00 sharp Beginning of the meeting
7:00 ~ 7:10 Opening remarks/ newcomers self-introduction of /grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50 First discussion session (7:35 Reminding each group of making a review for the speaker)
7:50 ~ 8:00 First summarization
8:00 ~ 8:10 Regrouping and taking a break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:10 ~ 8:40 Second discussion session (8:35 Reminding each group of making a review for the speaker)
8:40 ~ 8:50 Second summarization
8:50 ~ 9:00 Concluding remarks/feedback from newcomers/ announcements
聚會時間：2007/12/5 (星期三) 請準時 6:45 pm 到 ~ 約 9:00 pm 左右結束
聚會地點：日安。KAFFA 北市南京東路三段303巷24號 (02)2719-7895
捷運南京東路站（木柵線）
走法: 出捷運南京東路站後, 順著慶城街直走 3 分鐘到 "萊爾富便利超商" 時, 右轉直走 30 公尺即可看到 "日安。KAFFA"
給新朋友的話：
1. 請事先準備2~3分鐘的英語自我介紹；討論完畢後可能會請你發表1~2分鐘的感想(feedback)。
2. 請事先閱讀討論主題相關內容以及host所提的問題，並事先寫下自己所欲發表意見的英文。
3. 來之前請先讀一下討論主題，思考一下如何回答及討論。
4. 在正式加入之前（繳交可退還之保證金NT$1,000)，可以先來觀摩三次。
This meeting i like it If I have free time I will go to yoyo English Club talk about the meeting with everybody I hope I can go
