No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting • Hacker News Board

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#101

Post by twobyfour » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #81

twobyfour wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the degree that it's an opening to economic opportunity, then yes, why not? FWIW, truck driving (at least long-haul) is a little different from programming in one important regard: it takes the driver away from their families for days at a time. This is typically more problematic for women than for men, since women are still more likely to be responsible for care of home and family, whether they want to or not. (I…

What about agriculture? That industry has faced labour deficiencies for years, and the need is only growing with tightening controls on migrant labour. Interestingly, worldwide, women are more likely than men to work in agriculture, but in the USA the industry is overwhelmingly dominated by men. Why isn't there a big push to get women into US agriculture like there is for US tech? Where is the government creating "fa…

I don't know.

But just because another industry isn't working on their problem doesn't mean we shouldn't work on ours.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#102

Post by lucozade » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #46

lucozade wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> girls that like coding aren't usually very interested in girly stuff You might have a causality problem here. For example, my daughter, who is definitely at the girly girl end of the spectrum sees no problem with being a lawyer or a medical doctor. That probably wouldn't have been the case a generation or so ago (at least here in the UK). > All of this is just demeaning the profession As the father of said girl, an…

What did the medicine and legal industries do to "pinkify" themselves in the last generation?

I didn't say they did. But those professions weren't attracting "girls who like girly stuff" either and now they are. So maybe we're not attracting them for similar reasons.

And, fundamentally, what changed in those professions is they accepted that it was them that needed to change to be more attractive, not some failing in girls.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that they're paragons of equality because they aren't. But in the specific question of attracting girls, even ones who like "girly stuff", they have solved that problem admirably.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#103

Post by curyous » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

drblast wrote: post #84

The title here is misleading, I think the article is right. I didn't get into tech because it was interesting, at least not initially. I got into computers because the movie War Games was cool as hell and I wanted to be like Matthew Broderick's character in that movie. I was 5 or 6 when I saw it. It was only after I got a Commodore 64 that I learned that it was going to be really difficult to do the things in the mov…

Great thoughts.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#104

Post by ashark » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #19

Pinkifying to appeal to women...sure, it's probably patronizing and wrong-headed. Pinkifying to appeal to young girls...absolutely need more of this. Almost every engineer I've ever spoken to on the topic had Legos or some other toy that involves combining building blocks of some sort into a larger whole when they were a child. We absolutely need to pinkify these toys to build engineering instincts in young girls if…

Why didn't other well-respected (better-respected, even) professions—doctor, lawyer, veterinarian—have to do this kind of thing to achieve balance or near-balance (or even swapping balance in favor of women)? Or did they have to do this stuff? IIRC the ratio on those started to swing heavily in the mid-80s, so it'd have to be something that happened around then, or earlier.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#105

Post by 20years » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

r3bl wrote: post #90

20years wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree with you here. I think middle school is actually the prime age to start teaching it but not the drag/drop scratch/block type stuff you see in the lower grades. It should be a requirement just like Math and English.

In my country, it is an obligatory class at the equivalent of the US middle school level (10-14 year old). However, doing something as complicated as "computing and informatics" (a literal translation of the subject name) that early in the school education just made it absolutely terrible, much worse than the traditional classes were in my school. I still excelled at it, mostly because of books (the Internet wasn't a…

Thanks for sharing your experience. Very interesting. What country are you from?

"However, doing something as complicated as "computing and informatics" (a literal translation of the subject name) that early in the school education just made it absolutely terrible, much worse than the traditional classes were in my school."

Oh wow! Yeah, that seems like a little much for middle school. I was thinking more so at the level of teaching them how to code fun stuff in Python or JavaScript. Let's not scare kids away at this age just yet and it sounds like the program your school had did just that :(

"The IT is still associated as a "male field", regardless of the fact that the subject is obligatory for everyone in that age range for about 15 years."

Honestly, I am not even so sure that requiring it will necessarily increase the count of women that go into this field. If anything, it will at least introduce it to more women showing them possible opportunities. I as a women in tech for 20 years have my own theories on why many women don't go into this profession but they are unpopular opinions here.

The main reason I would love to see it included as a main subject is because I want our youth (men and women) to be prepared for the jobs of our future. I truly believe that almost every profession will require programmers or tech specific roles in the very near future and our education system is not preparing our youth for that.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#106

Post by twobyfour » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

EncipheredBy wrote: post #76

twobyfour wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be surprised to learn that girls aren't attracted only to toys that are pink and flowery or related to traditionally feminine pursuits. I find that assumption damaging. As a girl, my favorite toys were legos, blocks, and the toy cars that sadly were more often gifts to my brother than to me or to us both. Ideally all three together (racing cars down the hallway on ramps built from blocks and lego? Win!) Non…

I also was pretty gender-agnostic in my choice of toys as a child, and get annoyed at parents who I assumed pushed "girly" stuff on their kids. But then I got to know parents who were trying to actively discourage their kids from like princess garbage, but they couldn't stop it because the kids learn from their friends. I'm no child psychologist, but there's probably some age where what their peer group thinks is mor…

The solution for my parents was to send me to an all-girls school with a feminist bent. That had its own drawbacks in plenty, but the upside was an upbringing relatively free of gender stereotypes.

And talk to them about it. If they're hearing one thing from their friends and another at home, they will experience cognitive dissonance, and they will wonder about it, even if they don't know to ask about it.

Edited to add: pinkification and genderization of toys seems to have accelerated since I was a kid. Entire aisles of toys in pink boxes instead of a single shelf of barbies. The explosion of Disney princesses hasn't helped either. (I remember being a teenager going to see The Little Mermaid and my mom explaining that it was a big deal because it was Disney's first animated feature in decades.)

I think maybe to some degree people are subconsciously frightened that women are now able to wear anything men can wear, do anything men can do. The reaction is to make sure that there are still differentiators between men and women (because, OMG, how can you interact with a person without being able to define you understanding of them based on gender? [never mind that we do it all the time in places like HN]) - and the easiest way to do that is to make sure the girls are pink! That way you can tell them apart!

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#107

Post by benjaminl » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #27

curun1r wrote: post #19

Pinkifying to appeal to women...sure, it's probably patronizing and wrong-headed. Pinkifying to appeal to young girls...absolutely need more of this. Almost every engineer I've ever spoken to on the topic had Legos or some other toy that involves combining building blocks of some sort into a larger whole when they were a child. We absolutely need to pinkify these toys to build engineering instincts in young girls if…

You might be surprised to learn that girls aren't attracted only to toys that are pink and flowery or related to traditionally feminine pursuits. I find that assumption damaging. As a girl, my favorite toys were legos, blocks, and the toy cars that sadly were more often gifts to my brother than to me or to us both. Ideally all three together (racing cars down the hallway on ramps built from blocks and lego? Win!) Non…

One of the things that I have increasingly come to realize is that one of my daughter's core values is beauty. She loves to make beautiful things and have beauty around her. Yes, her favorite colors are pink and purple. So when we added those colors to the mix of logo colors, it substantially increased her enjoyment in Legos.

So every child is different. I think it is a matter of presenting opportunities to our kids in ways that are most meaningful to them as individuals.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#108

Post by twobyfour » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

1auralynn wrote: post #25

The real way we're going to see equity in girls going into computer science/tech is for it to be an academic requirement, or at least an honors-level course in all high schools. In my high school in the 90's, computer science was practically a vo-tech class so none of the smart girls took it - hobbyist boys were the ones with the most experience going into college. I had an engineer dad, was super into computers, and…

As long as the social pressure provides friction, classes won't make girls much more likely to take up technology - any more than opening up Home Ec to both genders gave us a generation of men choosing to learn to bake.

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#109

Post by stinkytaco » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #91

stinkytaco wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I'm trying to make is that if we are indeed to engage to appeal to a specific group, we need to make assumptions about that group. Your example above is a different problem. In that situation we are trying to not be hostile to a specific group. That's really a much easier problem to identify (not solve) because hostile behavior is hostile behavior, no matter who you are. It's incredibly important to solve t…

> In that situation we've defined a problem: "girls are not interested in technology to the same extent that boys are" Are you sure that's the problem? What if you restate it as "at some point in their lives, girls become less interested in technology than boys" or "at some point in their lives, girls' interest in technology declines, unlike boys'" Now you have very different problems and very different solutions. Wh…

I'm not sure what that data shows us. It shows us that more women get engineering degrees and fewer computer science degrees since 1980? It shows us that more women get degrees period, actually. It's also showing us a snapshot in time: women between the ages of 18-22. That doesn't really address at all the problem of "girls before 18".

Girls have only recently drawn even with boys in attendance in high school stem classes, and still lag quite a bit in computer science. And minorities do even worse [1]. Anecdotaly, my experience also bears this out. The First Robotics clubs in my area (aimed at ages 9-14) are majority boys, despite several teams (including my daughter's school) being coached by female engineers specifically hoping to encourage more girls.

I don't think it's the wrong question.

[1]: https://ngcproject.org/statistics

Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting

#110

Post by randomdata » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #101

randomdata wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about agriculture? That industry has faced labour deficiencies for years, and the need is only growing with tightening controls on migrant labour. Interestingly, worldwide, women are more likely than men to work in agriculture, but in the USA the industry is overwhelmingly dominated by men. Why isn't there a big push to get women into US agriculture like there is for US tech? Where is the government creating "fa…

I don't know. But just because another industry isn't working on their problem doesn't mean we shouldn't work on ours.

I work in agriculture, so it is my industry and my place to work on. But realistically this problem does not seem exclusive to any particular industry, so I'm not sure it even makes sense for a specific industry to try and attack the problem in a way that only applies to that industry. There must be some solution that applies generally? Why not work together?