Sunday, July 23, 2006

Women rate themselves as less proficient than men in Internet skills

Melissa Healy of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article several days ago about a study whose results appeared in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly. In 2001 and 2002, a Northwestern University sociologist, Eszter Hargittai, put 100 people of different ages, education levels and ethnicities through a test of online computer proficiency. She then asked them to rate their skill at navigating the Internet and obtaining information.

There were 51 women and 49 men in the study. Hargittai learned a few things she expected to learn: that younger computer users and more educated computer users rated themselves as more proficient than older users or more educated ones. The surprise result for the sociologist was that--despite having equal skills--the women rated their proficiency level lower than the men rated theirs.

"Not a single woman among all our female study subjects called herself an 'expert' user, while not a single male ranked himself as a complete novice or 'not at all skilled'," Hargittai said. She also says she "sees a replay of the he-versus-she math-and-science contest, in which women concede defeat even before an objective score has been tallied."

6 Comments:

No surprises here. Women are very reticent to claim expertise they aren't certain they have. They'd rather underrate themselves than risk being caught as an imposter. Most men on the other hand, think nothing of overrating themselves anytime, all the time. The bluster and bluff works for them. It's even expected. I constantly fight the impulse to only claim the expertise I am certain is solidly mine. I always have to compete with men who are BSing their way ahead of me into a job that I'm better prepared to do than they are. It's hard. I don't even know why. It's not like I'm a timid teenager anymore. But there it is.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:10 PM  

When I was a child, we were told "always let the boy win." Even though girls are not told that anymore (at least in most mainstream American populations), the tendency seems to have lingered in our cultural genes. If girls see their mothers and their female teachers unable to claim credit for their achievements, then they, too, will be reticent to do so. It's a disease that gets passed on, along with the "I can't ask a man out" disease.

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