Society does not have an interest -- using "interest" in the legal sense -- in getting girls into tech. But a fair society DOES have an interest in eliminating gender-based barriers should they choose to go into tech.
No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
151–160 of 179 posts
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there something wrong with the drag and drop approach? I find that working with kids on programming lego robots through their drag and drop approach is fairly engaging to them and does communicate concepts pretty well (loops, arrays, variables and so on). Of course you need to move them to a more "grown up" syntax eventually, but I suspect that comes as they need to solve more complex programs.
I think the drag/drop tools are great for the younger kids but once they reach middle school age they are generally ready for something more. I periodically teach middle school coding workshops. One of the top questions the kids ask at the start of a new workshop is will they be using scratch or hand coding. They associate scratch with the young kids and want more control by this age.
Scratch of course is a very well known drag and drop coding environment, but it has been used in the UK to produce programs that can achieve A* grades at GCSE. Scratch can handle variable casting, iteration, IF statements and lots more besides. I have a whole bunch of 12 year olds who are all over Scratch, producing great code, and not at all perceiving it as somehow less than Java or Python. In fact last year, my 14 year old Year 10s came second in a Scratch competition in the Middle East, winning Apple Watches. So yes drag and drop tools can be seen as being a tad babyish, but when pushed they can be very effective.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it could be that computer science (what most people refer as "tech") came to be dominated by the boy's club videogame/nerd culture from the early 80's, which pushed women out. It goes back to another topic here on HN: I don't know of any other career so dominated by a culture as SWE/tech.
Sure, I think you're probably correct that rampant video game culture probably did begin to alienate women, even back in the eighties, since they saw that computers were mostly being used as tools for violent competition and most women were not very interested in that. That's where our opinions will probably diverge though, because I also believe boys glean more enjoyment from video games simply because they are biol…
> video games simply because they are biologically-predisposed to enjoy violent / high-stakes competitions more intensely.
You're making the assumption that all games must be competitive and violent and therefore women will enjoy it less.
That is wrong.
Not only women enjoy video games as much as men, they already outnumber men in gaming in many markets.
Every time you make an assumption, think if that assumption is being driven by gender stereotypes.
"Since there seems to be a strong chance that the root of the problem is innate / hormonal / biological it's not an issue that's "easy" to even rationally discuss, let alone solve, as you keep stating throughout the thread."
No, women liked technology, then they were pushed out by a hostile culture. The problem isn't hormonal or biological, it's cultural.
The problem isn't women not liking violent games, is men treating women like shit.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#154The 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…
It is true that young males view themselves as modders/hackers in a way that many young females do not. Many reasons for this exist, but the answer can surely only lie in educating this age group to think differently. I don't hold out much hope that Hollywood will respond with a gender volte face.
As far as I know there is no lack of female hackers in movies nor of creative girls and women in real life. Take the electronics/maker scene. Even though there is even less women in EE/ME than software (which is quite the feat in itself) I can think of at least half a dozen public women in what little scene there is. Software culture is much more subjective and largely based on things that doesn't exists anymore. And even if it did it would to a large extent have been created by and for men. If we want more women in software culture it has to be about making cool things and not about fitting into stereotypes.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, I think you're probably correct that rampant video game culture probably did begin to alienate women, even back in the eighties, since they saw that computers were mostly being used as tools for violent competition and most women were not very interested in that. That's where our opinions will probably diverge though, because I also believe boys glean more enjoyment from video games simply because they are biol…
> video games simply because they are biologically-predisposed to enjoy violent / high-stakes competitions more intensely. You're making the assumption that all games must be competitive and violent and therefore women will enjoy it less. That is wrong. Not only women enjoy video games as much as men, they already outnumber men in gaming in many markets. Every time you make an assumption, think if that assumption is…
>Every time you make an assumption, think if that assumption is being driven by gender stereotypes.
I have, and most of the time the stereotypes have some truth to them, however unfortunate it may be.
> The problem isn't hormonal or biological, it's cultural.
Culture doesn't spring into existence from a vacuum, it arises from the aggregation and normalization of the biological impulses and drives of many people.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm pretty sure its "Code like a girl". That's the name of the submitted and is the completed form of said URL. I'm also reasonably sure that referring to women professionals as "girls" is also one of those things you shouldn't do. Right hand, meet left hand. These are adults, and they happen to be male/female/white/black/asian/whatever. (Unless we're actually talking about k-9 school aged females. Then girl is a…
You aren't allowed opinions, my friend. Right or wrong, you must be gender biased (unless it's against females) or you mustn't raise points.
I think the downvotes are more related to the fact that their opinion seems to have been formed without viewing the actual website.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#157Pinkifying 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.
Because the professions you listed aren't based on a skill that children develop during play in the same way that engineering is. A lot of engineering is about visualizing how smaller pieces of a larger whole can fit together, even if those pieces are more complex and/or more abstract than the Lego pieces that we give to kids.
The professions you listed primarily rely on memory and pattern recognition which don't differ too much between the sexes.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#158The 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.
I'd be inclined to say the gamer->modder->hacker path is generally less accessible in the mainstream today than it was 10 or 15 years ago. The above comment made me realize that's effectively the path I followed too, but can today's AAA titles be tinkered with the way Halo PC, Counter Strike, etc could be so thoroughly modified after a few hours poking through forums? I can remember the first time I used the (fan made) halo editing kit to play as an alien on the Silent Cartographer as a crystallizing moment for me to go from a computer user to a computer creator.
I'd say Bethesda games are likely the exception - though from what I remember, trying to mod Fallout 3 mostly previewed to me how frustrating development can be :p
Edit: For what it's worth, I attended the Syracuse University ischool for my bs/ms and while that's also not a computer science program, my classes were usually at least equally proportioned between men and women. So that's at least a personal anecdote that the runway for women entering tech may be improving.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until a few minutes ago, I'd never heard of "pinkifying", either. Here, I'll make one up that will be instantly recognizable: Masculinizing.
Yes, pinkifying is not a real term, but the truth is, I was trying to describe the stereotype and couldn't for boys. I thought girls stereotypes are they like pink, flowers, dresses, sparkles, dolls, etc. And then I chocked on boys, I wouldn't be able to go ahead and "masculinize" something, because I wouldn't know what that means. I'm thinking boys like fighting, to argue, the color blue or red, trucks, cars, heavy…
Yes, liking cute, pink things is a common girl stereotype.
Liking rough sports, guns, cars, and having a lot of testosterone are male stereotypes, among others.
If you need a visual thing you can do to something to make men like it more, you could paint it with racing stripes or hunter/army camo. It doesn't lend itself to a pithy word easily, but it's the same idea.
I'm not saying it's right to stereotype anyone. I'm saying that it's not eye-opening that it's easy to understand a stereotype about one and then fail to come up with something similar for the other.
Re: No need to pinkify – Girls get interested in tech because it is interesting
#160Pinkifying 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…
> 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
Perhaps not all or even most girls, but definitely some are. As long as the gender-neutral versions are available for girls like you were, what's the problem with having more targeted options for the girls that are different? The point is to get these kinds of toys into the hands of girls in whatever way possible so that they don't miss out on this crucial developmental stage.