Trump2cash – A stock trading bot powered by Trump tweets

Whenever Trump signs on executive order or signals an intention, I presume it will either fail or will end in bad results for the poor and middle class.

Then, working as if that were true, I see if there are any stocks or ETFs that would benefit from that and buy some.

I have been doing pretty good!

A few years ago I lived on the west coast, organized a regular software meet-up, and did some volunteer time at a similarly named group (though not Girls Who Code). I volunteered as a mentor once or twice a month for about half a year, not because it was a place to teach women or children how to use Python but because it was a place that welcomed all marginalized groups: poor children, the elderly, homosexual, and of course woment and girls.

At the start of summer about 3 or 4 years ago I was approached by one of the organizers and asked to make that night my last one. I asked if it was about the quality of instruction or complaints and they explained that the organizers felt the group would be better if the mentor roles were female. Simple as that: your gender mattered if you wanted to be in a teaching role, but I was welcome to donate to the cause through donations. I left and didn't return.

A couple of years later I'd relocated to the east coast and signed up with a bunch of co-workers to volunteer at weekend programming-camp for children. By pure chance we'd assembled a equal mix of male/female and also had representatives from 5/7 continents. A couple of days before the event one of our iOS developers had to drop out so we were a 5/4 split of male to female volunteers. When we arrived at the event we were instructed that they had a requirement that the mentors be at most 50% male and so one of us would have to take a seat. I understand that they think it's important that young people see men and women are "at worst" equally talented, but I can't help but feel like we were accused of being predators that needed a female chaperone. I wonder what their reaction would have been knowing one of the women with us was transgendered…

I left and also stopped helping organize the "parent groups" (a programming language meet-up whos name would make you think it's for women but in practice was more inclusive). The company I work at is still a sponsor of that group and I have no intention to complain about even though I think the tactics of their organizers are questionable.

I realize this is all one sided and sounds like what a bigot is likely to say. I'm refusing to name organizations because I think ultimately the goal of sharing that joy I found as a young person with my first computer is a good one. My issue is with the organizers of these two particular groups who are—in my opinion—attempting to do the right thing the wrong way.

Look, you sound like a nice guy, so I don't mean this as a personal attack, but your take on this is a classic example of how good people can fall into the trap of their own privilege. You don't do events where men/boys are not allowed to attend (e.g. girls who code) and that sounds noble and ideal. However, it somewhat ignores the fact that the reason these events have come into existence is that our profession has for decades suffered from massive amounts of systemic discrimination (sexism in particular). Just because it's not encoded in a written set of rules, doesn't mean it hasn't always been present. For men/boys, there are infinitely more events to attend where the gender balance will always be swung widely in their favor.

When a woman developer joins/joined an all-male development team, do you think they have the luxury of being able to say "No, I won't do that"? Sure, there's no rule saying the team should be only male, but that's the "systemic" part. This is the "privilege" I'm referring to. You can say "no", because there are plenty of other talks and workshops for you to take part in. There is little to no negative impact on you from refusing those invites. What if women-only workshops were the predominant event out there?

I don't think events like Girls Who Code are the final solution. I agree with you that, in the end, an industry and events open to everyone is the solution. However, we've reached such a massive imbalance by operating via the status quo that I think things like Girls Who Code, despite being "discriminatory" by a textbook definition, have a net positive effect, rather than the opposite. I'll happily volunteer my time to teach more girls to again when I have the chance. I don't think the lip-service of saying our industry and events are open to both men and women will tip the scales towards equality.