Carol Kleiman from her "Women at Work" column in the Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1994:

Sociologist Mary Frances Stuck of the State University of New York at Oswego has found that women "tend to think of computers as productivity tools," to be used only to get the job done.

Women reportedly believe that using networking systems at work may be a waste of valuable time; at home, women often are too tired or too busy with household responsibilities to enjoy the luxury of "playing" with the computer.

Men, on the other hand, "tend to look at computers as things to be explored... as toys," Stuck says. They see computers as a challenge to be conquered.

There's another problem, too. Some women report being sexually harassed on mainstream on-line systems. That's why, I believe, 90 percent of the 700 subscribers to Women's Wire of San Francisco are female—and unharassed.

Overall, despite the fact that twice as many women as men work at desktop computers, men are much more active on-line users.

Stuck doesn't mention another factor that makes women reject computer services: Much of the terminology of computer technology was invented by men to appeal to men.

But women pay a price for being turned off by terms such as "hardware" and "software" or by systems described as being "up" or "down."

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