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

#121

Post by falcolas » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

softawre wrote: post #111

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…

> gamer->modder->hacker path This doesn't exist today? What about Minecraft mods, or building Redstone circuits? Game modding is as big as it was when I went through that cycle, isn't it? At least, that's what I plan to show my daughter when she gets a bit older to test her interest.

The path is still there, just not in mainstream titles (at least not as frequently in mainstream titles). If I may point you at my favorite crack, err, game: factorio.

Modding: check. Scientific(ish) concepts: check. Mathematics: check. Encouraging automation: check.

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

#122

Post by toasterlovin » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #94

tempodox wrote: post #82

I would be genuinely interested in what “code like a girl” means in practial terms. Do girls/women code differently than boys/men, and if so, how? Since females are so exceedingly rare in our profession, I haven‘t had the opportunity to find out myself.

It's just a rhetorical device. The phrase "play like a girl" has already been established and associated with various advocacy groups trying to increase sports opportunities for girl who were previously discouraged from participating in the traditionally male activity. But I think that the original phrase, "(do it) like a man" was meant to contrast with "like a boy", as in "be a mature and skilled adult, not an awkwa…

I believe these are all playing off of the phrases "run like a girl" and "throw like a girl" (not sure which derives from which).

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

#123

Post by glhaynes » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

I adore @sailorhg's (https://twitter.com/sailorhg) work on femme techy stuff. Her zines aren't the best way for me to learn and her clothes definitely aren't for me! — but they certainly are for some people, and that's super-exciting.

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

#124

Post by didibus » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #113

bdamm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's telling that there isn't even a term for this. You've hit a major point here.

Also, you rarely see people fretting over the low percentage of males going for primary education jobs. In many ways these jobs are just as or more important than computer programming, but nobody cares that it has such a lopsided gender ratio. Personally, I don't even care about it, but it makes me pause to consider why I have to be so concerned about the lack of women in CS. Am I being an asshole and trying to shove…

I think the two possible issues are:

1) Job availability and remuneration. CS is a high ROI profession currently. It pays well, has lots of open jobs for it, and takes relatively low investment to get into. If it wasn't so, they'd be much less talking about its gender gap.

2) The treatment of the minority gender in a particular field. There might be low males in primary education, but those that are in the field, do they find themselves at a disadvantage? Do they feel like the majority female create a toxic environment for them, making them feel uneasy about working in that field?

But I'll add one more:

3) People in STEM might actually be very open minded and progressive, much more open to talk about issues and much more interested in fixing them, and not letting bias be truth. This might be why you hear about women in stem and their difficulties, while you rarely hear about the difficulties of women in other male dominated fields.

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

#125

Post by jayd16 » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

softawre wrote: post #111

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…

> gamer->modder->hacker path This doesn't exist today? What about Minecraft mods, or building Redstone circuits? Game modding is as big as it was when I went through that cycle, isn't it? At least, that's what I plan to show my daughter when she gets a bit older to test her interest.

Games are often male dominated and the culture can be toxic.

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

#126

Post by jpindar » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:18 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #94

tempodox wrote: post #82

I would be genuinely interested in what “code like a girl” means in practial terms. Do girls/women code differently than boys/men, and if so, how? Since females are so exceedingly rare in our profession, I haven‘t had the opportunity to find out myself.

It's just a rhetorical device. The phrase "play like a girl" has already been established and associated with various advocacy groups trying to increase sports opportunities for girl who were previously discouraged from participating in the traditionally male activity. But I think that the original phrase, "(do it) like a man" was meant to contrast with "like a boy", as in "be a mature and skilled adult, not an awkwa…

I disagree that it has anything to do with man vs. boy.

The phrase "play like a girl" is a reaction to "throw like a girl" and "fight like a girl", which meant to do those things in a less than effective way. Now that phrase is being redefined as a statement that girls can do things just fine and doing something like a girl does not mean doing it badly.

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

#127

Post by mantas » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #72

waisbrot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's not wrong, but to say "she just is [interested in things that are traditionally gendered]" seems a little incurious. Princesses, pink ponies, and frilly dresses did not exist when modern humans came into being. So liking or disliking those things is almost entirely a matter of socialization and not some kind of biotruth. While you may have tried to socialize her away from "girly" stuff, peers are often a strong…

I would really like to know why this was dovnvoted. Horses used to be boy toys when men worked with horses and now are exclusively girl toys.

Because girls usually loved shiny-but-useless objects. Meanwhile boys preferred work tools. Horse happened to move from work tool to shiny-but-useless thing.

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

#128

Post by Animats » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:36 PM UTC

Naomi Wu, from Shenzhen, is doing this better.[1] She's become very visible and has a biting wit. The publisher of Make magazine called her a phony, she didn't back down, and he had to apologize.

[1] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg

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

#129

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:36 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #75

Danihan wrote: post #8

"YOU NEED TO TRY HARDER TO APPEAL TO MINORITY GROUPS." - 2 seconds later - "STOP USING STEREOTYPES TO APPEAL TO MINORITY GROUPS, IT'S OFFENSIVE." I mean, I understand the sentiment, but I can also see why many industry professionals begin to think this sort of thing is a catch-22 where smug criticisms will be levied, regardless of conscientiousness.

Using uppercase for emphasis is against the HN guidelines. Please don't do that; it's like yelling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by hood_syntax » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #125

softawre wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gamer->modder->hacker path This doesn't exist today? What about Minecraft mods, or building Redstone circuits? Game modding is as big as it was when I went through that cycle, isn't it? At least, that's what I plan to show my daughter when she gets a bit older to test her interest.

Games are often male dominated and the culture can be toxic.

> male dominated

True, but shouldn't/doesn't matter, especially if the game has no voice chat required (or encouraged by the nature of the game). When I played WoW for a little over a year, the guild I was in had several women. LoL has lots of female players (mostly due to the size of its playerbase), Hearthstone even has a few popular female streamers.

> culture can be toxic

Also true, but most mainstream companies are responsive to feedback about negative players via reporting functionality or something of the like. You deal with negative interactions as a female just by being on social media, games are no different. The main difference is that being a dick to someone is a bannable offence in a lot of mainstream games.