[splintercell]

> I can appreciate that you had a great environment with an older brother and father that encouraged you to participate in technical activities with them, but not everyone has the same environment. <

What women need to understand is that just by solving this problem of "encourage women to do X" won't do anything. Why not? Because that's not the real problem.

What you miss about AlyssaRowan's post is that she is telling you that she never cared about other people's validation. What you read there is as 'her brother and father encouraged her'.

Try ignoring what other people expect out of you and you will find that suddenly everybody is rallying behind you.

[tremon]

The two are very much related. The way you learn to ignore other (random) people's validation, is by having enough validation early on from the people that really matter. If you've missed that early validation, it becomes a lot harder to build your inner validation.

[splintercell]

> If you've missed that early validation, it becomes a lot harder to build your inner validation.

That is not true at all. It's a choice, always. Even after not caring for other people's validation or their value judgment, more 'validation' is what you need in order for you to start caring about their validation.

Tell me which one would have a stronger effect upon you to live up to other people's values:

a) tremon I've always seen you happy, and I hope you will keep my daughter always happy

b) tremon you're a loser, you will never be successful in life. My daughter will be so unhappy with you.

If you think the first statement is what will make you not care about your in law's opinions, then you're totally wrong, and it tells me that you have never 'not-cared' for other people's opinion about you.

It's the second statement which makes me wanna work towards my own happiness with my future wife. The first statement pushes me to deny my own feelings because it's only in first case you could disappoint someone else.