41–50 of 177 posts
I've yet to see a study proving that we have in proportion more sexist men than other fields.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, we are near the situation when asking a girl out for a cup of coffee is perceived as an atempt to rape.
We are not 'near' that point. The Rebecca Watson incident clearly demonstrates that we are already there.
RW said that being hit on in an elevator @ 4AM made her feel uncomfortable. That's it, and if people were able to muster up a shred of empathy and think "gee, if this makes people feel uncomfortable, I shouldn't do it", elevatorgate wouldn't have happened.
Instead, men came out of the woodwork left and right trying to defend their right to flirt on women in any situation, irrelevant of how it might make the woman feel.
Why do we let the same tired discussion about gender pervade HN once per week?
Because it remains unresolved and is one of the biggest social problems faced by the industry that 90% of HN readers are (or aspire to be) in.
"Oh, a female applicant!" (Tone: Surprise)
"He's male which immediately places him above [the female applicant]" (Tone: Joking... but inappropriately sandwiched between comments relevant to their ability to do the job, imo)
Argument ensued as I pushed to see how serious he was being... had an interesting 5 minutes of biting my tongue while the owner of the company justified not hiring women, at length. The usual stuff, maternity leave etc. Plenty of anecdotes.
Most interesting part was right after the surprise at a female applicant, though...
"I've only known one female developer that was any good... now, you might say that there just aren't that many female developers full stop, and that's true, but there must be a reason for that"
I passed the conversations on, as verbatim as I can, to the relevant governmenty people but they can do nothing and I can do nothing. The only person that can do anything is a female applicant, if they don't get accepted, and it's shown that this is due to discrimination.
Pretty sure there's nothing more I can do at this point :( Very, very angry and feeling utterly powerless.
Note: I really would like an answer for the first question. What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming? Why do people care so much about having lots of women work in the software industry? Seriously, there seems to be this desire to get women into programming. If women really were into programming they would get into it despite the 'sexist creeps'. It might surprise all th…
And then he made the comment that she being all that, is also "easy on the eyes". I flinched, but held my tongue and it bothered me afterwards enough to think why he felt compelled to put that out there, especially to someone he just met.
I agree the problem is pervasive, whether its against women, minorities or the guy down the hallway.
Note: I really would like an answer for the first question. What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming? Why do people care so much about having lots of women work in the software industry? Seriously, there seems to be this desire to get women into programming. If women really were into programming they would get into it despite the 'sexist creeps'. It might surprise all th…
Perhaps women just don't want to get into computer science.
And no amount of bending over backwards and trying to
appeal to female programmers will get us to a situation of
50% female developers.
If you're going come up a controversial answer, you better have some solid evidence backing you up.
I'm glad someone called Tom out on that image he posted. It's minor in the entire scheme of things, but what irritates me are the casual comments and reactions like "That's ok.. haha, very funny!" It's like there's this cognitive dissonance happening: people believe in equality between sexes, and treating women like regular humans with respect... yet we also make casual comments that treat females as just objects. It…
Frankly, that picture is a bad example of the rampant mysogyny which does actually exist in our field.
Note: I really would like an answer for the first question. What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming? Why do people care so much about having lots of women work in the software industry? Seriously, there seems to be this desire to get women into programming. If women really were into programming they would get into it despite the 'sexist creeps'. It might surprise all th…
Women are fighting to get more respect and representation in computer programming. That's why we're having this discussion.