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The power of role models

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Re: The power of role models

#301

Post by stale2002 »

bsder wrote: post #293
stale2002 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can figure out the reason that they left by asking them. This isn't something that is controversial. There is lots of research into this. https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-wome... http://news.mit.edu/2016/why-do-women-leave-engineering-0615 http://alltogether.swe.org/2016/04/real-reason-women-leave-s... Are just a couple, actually published research attempts that I found with a 2 minute goog…

Except that every single one of these is a problem for MEN too ... Assignments just don't drop in your lap, you have to go get them. Praise doesn't just materialize, you have to make sure that the right people know what you did--sometimes with a baseball bat. Everybody fights to get "fast-tracked", although I don't really know what that means anymore outside of large companies. I knew lots of people at IBM, both male…

.... Being sexually harassed by your coworkers is a problem for men as well?

Re: The power of role models

#302

Post by savanaly »

tbirdz wrote: post #107
skywhopper wrote: post #12

Programming used to be a field with significant numbers of women, including true pioneers like Grace Hopper. IIRC, female computer science majors peaked in the 80s, and have been declining since. Even with those low numbers these days, a lot of women who are interested in programming and computer science are chased away early on, or they quickly move into more welcoming fields. So it's true that among senior staff, w…

>Rob is right that role models are important. I've heard this thought expressed a lot, but I have to ask a genuine question: Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field? I'm a man, so maybe it is different for women. But I never really had any role models in programming that I looked up to/wanted to emulate. Personally, I was always interested in computers, softwa…

I think when a human does something it's usually not because they reasoned that it was the best thing to do, but because they asked themselves the question (subconsciously, more often than not) "is this the sort of thing I would do?"

The answer their brain comes up with to that question is going to play the most important role, even if reason would dictate a different response. This is at the root of the countless biases and heuristics that psychologists go on about (confirmation bias, anchoring heuristic, etc.) How this relates to young women trying decide on a career is obvious.

To share my personal anecdote (I'm male): I graduated college having taken some programming classes but no real drive to be a programmer, nor anything else in particular. A Twitch streamer I watched sometimes called Guardsman Bob occasionally did programming on his stream between video games, and through watching that I grew more and more to realize that that was something that people like me did. Few years later and I am a full-time web developer.

I wouldn't call him a role model (I'm agreeing with you, in other words). But he was integral because watching him affected how I conceived of what a person like me (male, young, video gamer, shut-in) would be doing. Male is only one part of it, but it's undeniably a big part of it. Thus, I agree with those who say we should ensure there are more visible examples of female or minority X programmers-- it will change the lives of people who are like that and make them more likely to follow the path. But I wouldn't say we need more role models, just need to affect the way they think about programming and whether they think it's "the sort of thing I would do."

Re: The power of role models

#303

Post by s_kilk »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #208
pjc50 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "environmental movement" could be an artifact of computing. The mindset that there is a knowable and optimum equilibrium for complex systems is something I find increasingly puzzling There's a split in environmentalism between the "deep green" who want nature to be left alone and tend to have a spiritualist approach, versus the "bright green" technocratic management of ecosystems. But the deep greens definitely cam…

I wonder then how we classify a John Muir? Seems "deep green" to me. I think his oeuvre came from the Romantics. I am not doing Curtis' thesis justice; you'd have to see the ( freely available, SFAIK ) film. He doesn't just paint environmentalism with this brush. I found the idea bracing; I saw myself in it.

> you'd have to see the ( freely available, SFAIK ) film.

For the curious: "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"

Re: The power of role models

#304

Post by slavik81 »

tbirdz wrote: post #107
skywhopper wrote: post #12

Programming used to be a field with significant numbers of women, including true pioneers like Grace Hopper. IIRC, female computer science majors peaked in the 80s, and have been declining since. Even with those low numbers these days, a lot of women who are interested in programming and computer science are chased away early on, or they quickly move into more welcoming fields. So it's true that among senior staff, w…

>Rob is right that role models are important. I've heard this thought expressed a lot, but I have to ask a genuine question: Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field? I'm a man, so maybe it is different for women. But I never really had any role models in programming that I looked up to/wanted to emulate. Personally, I was always interested in computers, softwa…

One of the things that enticed me about programming was that I didn't know anyone who really understood it. When I took an introduction to programming in first year university, it was like Harry visiting Hogwarts for the first time and learning magic.

With that being said, my mother and father were both engineers. I hedged my bets by studying EE before going pure software. Role models contributed to me signing up for engineering, even if they had different specialities.

Re: The power of role models

#305

Post by cm2012 »

watwut wrote: post #186
dominotw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

growing up in a poor country my two options were 1. become a software engineer 2. continue to live rest of your life in dire poverty. This is precisely the reason you would find so many female programmers in south asian and other poor countries. Its funny to see all the armchair philosophers like Pike come up with some 'Well actually, it's because X' explanations without presenting a single bit of evidence to back it…

"growing up in a poor country my two options were 1. become a software engineer 2. continue to live rest of your life in dire poverty" Where exactly? Because frankly, that seems to be highly unlikely.

If you grow up poor and don't learn an in demand skill, life will wreck you. Life for unskilled labor is bleak worldwide. And software is one of the only skills where a smart person doesn't need money or connections to be competitive.

Re: The power of role models

#306

Post by throwaway8901 »

tbirdz wrote: post #107
skywhopper wrote: post #12

Programming used to be a field with significant numbers of women, including true pioneers like Grace Hopper. IIRC, female computer science majors peaked in the 80s, and have been declining since. Even with those low numbers these days, a lot of women who are interested in programming and computer science are chased away early on, or they quickly move into more welcoming fields. So it's true that among senior staff, w…

>Rob is right that role models are important. I've heard this thought expressed a lot, but I have to ask a genuine question: Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their interest in the field? I'm a man, so maybe it is different for women. But I never really had any role models in programming that I looked up to/wanted to emulate. Personally, I was always interested in computers, softwa…

Some role models I had (although in some ways some could be considered bad role models): geohot, Samy Kamkar, Aaron Swartz, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates.

When I was younger (before I was into computers) my role models were Albert Einstein, Harry Houdini, and the Wright brothers. This list was very easy to remember, because I did reports on all of them as assignments in elementary school. That basically forced me to pick role models. They're all STEM related except maybe Houdini, but he invented a lot of mechanisms for his tricks.

Re: The power of role models

#307

Post by nielsabel »

dang wrote: post #285
nielsabel wrote: post #153

“Science has been done without women for centuries, and it obviously worked.” – Luboš Motl Can we please just stop all this PC bullshit. Robo Pike obviously doesn't realize that the reason these women attending that meeting are so excellent is because there are so few of them. I.e. only those survived/came so far who have actual skills. The same goes for computer science. The women who are really skilled and who real…

This aggressive rant crosses the line on HN. If you can't contain your anger enough to post substantively and with respect for opposing views, you're not welcome to post here. It's not in your interest to do this anyhow, since it undercuts everything you're saying.

> This aggressive rant crosses the line on HN. If you can't contain your anger

I'm not angry at all, really. Merely stating my perspective.

> enough to post substantively and with respect for opposing views, you're not welcome to post here.

It seems to me that my view is the opposing one. Balancing the different views, in my opinion, is the job of the (critical) reader. How is the reader supposed to do this if all opposing views are “not welcome” (and my guess is ultimately banned). Again, I am merely stating my perspective.

And why the hell do I have to respect anyone('s opinion)? I don't go around randomly respecting people. Respect has to be earned.

> It's not in your interest to do this anyhow, since it undercuts everything you're saying.

I think I'll decide what's in my interest. And, really, that's the whole point here: you should judge what I say, not how I say it.

Re: The power of role models

#308

Post by Jabbles »

gaius wrote: post #299
Oxitendwe wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it comes down to the flip of a coin, why not add more diverse opinions if the team is male-heavy. Likewise if the team is female-heavy. What is the value of having an equal number of men and women? What is a "diverse opinion"? If you hire a woman over a man because of the "diverse opinion" you expect her to bring, and her opinions end up being the same as the men on her team, will you be disappointed at the lack…

If you hire a woman over a man because of the "diverse opinion" you expect her to bring Right, this is what I like to call the Google Fallacy. If you have a team that represents all genders, races, etc etc but they are all recent graduates of the same handful of CS programmes, then where does the diversity of opinions actually come from? This is why Google keeps making products and abandoning them when they fail to g…

Citation needed.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/25/why-google-doesnt-care-abo...

Re: The power of role models

#309

Post by gaius »

Jabbles wrote: post #308
gaius wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hire a woman over a man because of the "diverse opinion" you expect her to bring Right, this is what I like to call the Google Fallacy. If you have a team that represents all genders, races, etc etc but they are all recent graduates of the same handful of CS programmes, then where does the diversity of opinions actually come from? This is why Google keeps making products and abandoning them when they fail to g…

Citation needed. http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/25/why-google-doesnt-care-abo...

This is a PR fluff piece. How else do you explain them continually making products that appeal to no-one outside their demographic bubble?

Re: The power of role models

#310

Post by zigzigzag »

azernik wrote: post #92
zigzigzag wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been plenty of such studies. There is no "exodus", the industry has been dominated by men for a long time. It doesn't change because at each stage of the educational pipeline where women could make a choice that takes them towards software/hardware, a chunk of them drop out, until you get the ratios in the job you get today which are more or less similar to the ratios that graduate with CS degrees. They dr…

That is not an accurate representation of the research. See this public summary of a (sadly, paywalled) HBR paper on the subject [ https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engin... ]. At every stage of the educational pipeline, a chunk of women do indeed drop out. The cause, however, is often an encounter with sexist culture along the way. The subject of insecurity does come up: > Throughout college, me…

I think my representation was accurate and the sections you quoted rather support that.

So some women felt like they got assigned sucky roles in group projects. But so what? Men get assigned sucky roles in group projects too. Every group project has that problem: some roles will be perceived as more desirable than others. There was an assumption there that the girls "sentenced" (gosh, what emotive language) to some other role simply because they were girls, and not because they were simply less pushy personalities in general. But no evidence is provided either way - they never asked the men why they did that, or if they even perceived the women as upset. Maybe an assertive woman would have steamrollered shy men in the group, I've seen that happen. Sexism is asserted as the cause and, as is always the case, that lazy assumption passes unchallenged.

In another case, the women were complimented on their appearance by a man, something that happens in every work environment and every job around the world. This is related to gender ratios in programming specifically, how?

The last quote - I'm not even sure how that's related to sexism. It appears to show a man enjoying the studies.

I guess if women perceive things like the internet as not "contributing to society" that would be one of the non-sexism related problems women cause themselves. OK, sure, if they believe that, that'd explain some of the gender disparity, but again - so what? Lots of men believe the opposite. If true, it's a self-imposed handicap that women can discard anytime they like. Besides, I'd much rather work with people who believe their work has a higher purpose than people who are simply ambitious!

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