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When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

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Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#61

Post by kd1221 »

mekoka wrote: post #18

Avery Swartz, a mentor at another table, works as a freelance website designer. “A lot of my clients are women. They don’t necessarily want to work with a man because they are afraid of the intimidation factor, the tech speak, the ‘jargon’. I want women to feel empowered, to know that they can take an active role.” This is not a gender problem, it's pedagogical. My granddad would be intimidated to learn to code for t…

Also, I fear that groups of women programming might not get the same experience as if they were also programming with men. I'm skeptical of the value of gender-biased environments helping defeat perceived gender biases found in a particular activity. It seems it would only further promote gender biases.

The program fails if most of the women, upon exiting the program, start programming with men and say "This isn't like Ladies Learning Code!" and either quit programming altogether or simply join other groups of women to program.

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#62

Post by bellaire »

lizzard wrote: post #46
Cushman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point-- it is about gender. Women don't want to work with, and especially learn from, men because they are afraid that the man will not know how to speak to them as an equal. They're afraid he'll hide his discomfort behind jargon, and that he will be unable to be nice without being patronizing. Heaven forfend that this man, like many highly technical people, is socially awkward in general! In that…

I totally agree with you, except I don't think fear is quite the right way to frame it, and perhaps more that many women know they will be talked down to, make a rational decision that they don't want to put up with that, and do something else with their time.

Afraid doesn't necessarily denote the emotion of fear, I think in this context we can safely say it's merely the anticipation of something which is disliked. Like, "I'm afraid if I order from Sloppy Joe's Pizzeria, I'll find another hair in my pizza."

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#63

Post by pjscott »

Craiggybear wrote: post #11

I don't know. Women have always coded. I was taught assembler (my first programming job) by a woman. They have always been there (admittedly in smaller numbers then men) but they have always struck me as being excellent coders. We have women like Ada Lovelace and Grace Murray Hopper as fine computing minds to emulate and admire. Women have always been able to take to coding in my experience and be first class at it.…

> Women have always been able to take to coding in my experience and be first class at it.

When you say this, I'm not sure what you mean. Here are some possible interpretations:

(a) Most women can be first-class programmers.

(b) Among first-class programmers, some are women.

(c) Some third thing?

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#64

Post by rue »

Cushman wrote: post #29
mekoka wrote: post #18

Avery Swartz, a mentor at another table, works as a freelance website designer. “A lot of my clients are women. They don’t necessarily want to work with a man because they are afraid of the intimidation factor, the tech speak, the ‘jargon’. I want women to feel empowered, to know that they can take an active role.” This is not a gender problem, it's pedagogical. My granddad would be intimidated to learn to code for t…

You're missing the point-- it is about gender. Women don't want to work with, and especially learn from, men because they are afraid that the man will not know how to speak to them as an equal. They're afraid he'll hide his discomfort behind jargon, and that he will be unable to be nice without being patronizing. Heaven forfend that this man, like many highly technical people, is socially awkward in general! In that…

> They're not afraid of this by chance; this is a rational fear arising from a hundred, a thousand previous encounters with men, even trained teachers, who were abjectly unable to interact with women in a way that left them feeling comfortable.

This is a somewhat prejudiced argument; try switching the roles, or maybe adding ethnicity in there, and you'll see. “Everyone knows” etc.

Of course, that's not to say it must be untrue. The (at least perceived) alternate pedagogy does seem to work, so I'm all for it!

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#65

Post by Craiggybear »

pjscott wrote: post #63
Craiggybear wrote: post #11

I don't know. Women have always coded. I was taught assembler (my first programming job) by a woman. They have always been there (admittedly in smaller numbers then men) but they have always struck me as being excellent coders. We have women like Ada Lovelace and Grace Murray Hopper as fine computing minds to emulate and admire. Women have always been able to take to coding in my experience and be first class at it.…

> Women have always been able to take to coding in my experience and be first class at it. When you say this, I'm not sure what you mean. Here are some possible interpretations: (a) Most women can be first-class programmers. (b) Among first-class programmers, some are women. (c) Some third thing?

All of the above. Probably.

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#66

Post by lrhot9 »

ceol wrote: post #47
eternalban wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience in the field does not support your apparently strongly held assertion. Thus "IMO". > "you shouldn't try to grab focus with" Please do not question my motivation. I had a point to make.

It's not an assertion because this isn't something up for debate. Women face a lot of discrimination in the tech industry. You can say, "I don't see it," but saying it's your opinion that it doesn't exist is characterizing it as something that is opinionated. I'm sorry if it wasn't your intent to steal focus. What you did, whether intentional or not, is a common derailing tactic.

The only way for it to not be up for debate would be if there existed a perfect discrimination-measuring machine.

Look, if lack of diversity can only be explained by discrimination, you need to show that the field where women are most underrepresented - higher mathematics - is also the most rife with discrimination. I've never seen a female mathematician suggest it is. How do you explain this?

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#67

Post by moocow01 »

rdouble wrote: post #36
eternalban wrote: post #22

"If we allow ..." Who is this we and how is this authoritarian power exercised? Interestingly enough, Age discrimination in the industry continues to be ignored while the (IMO) highly debatable notion of sex discrimination in the field is the subject of countless articles and debates. At least the Japanese are honest about the fact that they don't want programmers older than 30 years of age. The barrier to entry in t…

At least the Japanese are honest about the fact that they don't want programmers older than 30 years of age. When I lived in Japan it seemed like nobody even got a job until they were 30...

We always talk about ageism in the US but thats really the double whammy if both of these statements are true. I guess you'd have a year long career as a programmer.

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#68

Post by jacoblyles »

lizzard wrote: post #51
akoumjian wrote: post #19

What I find interesting is that "tech jargon" is listed as the number one reason these women feared getting involved in the technical side of there businesses. It is not as though men are born knowing this jargon; they spend both work and free time learning it as a part of their interests. I know this is an old question, but how are we raising our young women to shy away from these things? Why is it acceptable to let…

Why? Because misogyny is a tool that can be wielded in many directions. And it gets wielded to defend privilege and power. Once a field is defined as powerful, part of an elite, girls often are driven out of it as that field or interest is redefined to be a male thing. Boys, and girls too, ostracize and mock girls who are "into computers" because they are going outside a gender norm. If you think this doesn't still h…

Your world model doesn't fit the fact that women have been gaining in every elite profession I can think of over the last 50 years. Take the example of the gender breakdown of law and medicine students:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/equality-for-women-bet...

Also, I would like to journey to this mythical world of yours where programming is considered an "elite" job.

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#69

Post by [deleted] »

Cushman wrote: post #29
mekoka wrote: post #18

Avery Swartz, a mentor at another table, works as a freelance website designer. “A lot of my clients are women. They don’t necessarily want to work with a man because they are afraid of the intimidation factor, the tech speak, the ‘jargon’. I want women to feel empowered, to know that they can take an active role.” This is not a gender problem, it's pedagogical. My granddad would be intimidated to learn to code for t…

You're missing the point-- it is about gender. Women don't want to work with, and especially learn from, men because they are afraid that the man will not know how to speak to them as an equal. They're afraid he'll hide his discomfort behind jargon, and that he will be unable to be nice without being patronizing. Heaven forfend that this man, like many highly technical people, is socially awkward in general! In that…

[deleted]

Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming

#70

Post by SolarNet »

lizzard wrote: post #51
akoumjian wrote: post #19

What I find interesting is that "tech jargon" is listed as the number one reason these women feared getting involved in the technical side of there businesses. It is not as though men are born knowing this jargon; they spend both work and free time learning it as a part of their interests. I know this is an old question, but how are we raising our young women to shy away from these things? Why is it acceptable to let…

Why? Because misogyny is a tool that can be wielded in many directions. And it gets wielded to defend privilege and power. Once a field is defined as powerful, part of an elite, girls often are driven out of it as that field or interest is redefined to be a male thing. Boys, and girls too, ostracize and mock girls who are "into computers" because they are going outside a gender norm. If you think this doesn't still h…

This, most definitely this. It wasn't until I went to university until I noticed it (And a very feminist [In the fact it has a large women's studies program] university at that, considering it was originally an all girls school).

Our major's lab probably isn't as bad as some, but there are still plenty of times that I could see a woman not feeling welcome in that room. I try to call them out on it, with the help of some other people, but it's only a marginal thing.

We also got some grant money to teach a general intro to CS class (marketed to freshmen, with a word choice aimed at females) that was very successful (and covered topics from basic programming, to algorithms and data structures, and touching on a lot of fields like cryptography, AI, graphics, ect.) 2 quarters after that class and our ratio of female majors has gone from 1:9 to 1:7. (Which may also be other factors)

But at least our majors lab has stopped singling out women for their gender...

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