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…
I agree that it's not a gender problem, or at least not only a gender problem. But the problem being more general does not necessarily imply that the solution should be equally general. I think a class like this might be just thing thing to get a certain class of women interested in programming, which is never a bad thing, even if it doesn't help people like your granddad. A similar class for older people might be ju…
When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
101–110 of 148 posts
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#102Avery 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 women, even women in management, who were abjectly unable to interact with men in a way that left them feeling comfortable. This is of course not to say that such women do not exist, as they surely do. But after a decade or two of experience, why roll the dice?
Now that I've flipped the genders, do you see how offensive your comment is?
My general view: if women are avoiding computing due to the stereotypes and intolerance as you describe, then good riddance.
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you making the point that characters in the games were male, hence they were guy games? There have been a number of famous female protagonists in games, it hasn't necessarily made them popular with girls, or unpopular with guys (Samus Aran, Lara Croft, etc). My Dad actually bought me Ms Pac-man with my atari 2600, I never had the original Pac-man (there was no point, it was the exact same game). I only listed Pac…
I have a female friend who enjoys the Mario series. That doesn't mean it's not gender-specific; it means there exist some women to which that game appeals. Super Mario is extremely gender-specific: the main characters are male attempting to save princesses. Pac-Man was less specific aside from his name, but even then, Ms Pac-Man was a hyper-gendered incarnation of her male counterpart. Take a look: Pac-Man logo: http…
Now you use Ms Pac-man's logo as the basis of your argument about the genderization in the game? Have you actually played any of these games? The last thing I remember from any of them was the packaging. Do you remember what the actual graphics or game-play was like at all? You force yourself to see "hyper-gendered incarnation" and to me, this is an example of what I believe the problem was originally with games: adults meddling in kids business, because they thought they saw something, that would normally have gone unnoticed to children. That's how we ended up with girls thinking that videogames are for boys. Someone had to tell them that.
Mario could have been after the golden treasure, or the secret chamber, or delivering the princess, or whatever, it made absolutely no difference to game play. People (boys and girls alike who enjoyed these games) didn't care. Ms Pac-man was a round yellow dot walking around in a labyrinth and swallowing ghosts. My friends and I played these without even knowing any English, so we had no idea what was being said in all the written messages, nor did we really care about the objective, we just enjoyed going stage after stage and defeating the "boss". In the case of Mario, we had no clue that the little person at the end of the stages was a girl, let alone a princess that we needed to eventually deliver. That's definitely not what enticed us to play and I don't believe that's what deterred girls to do the same. Mario could have been an old wizard, some type of sea monster and yes, a girl, the outcome would be the same, if there was game play, we would be there.
I haven't played any games in eons, but a quick look in a videogame store showed me evidence that today the offering in games is rather skewed toward young male. I am absolutely not in disagreement and actually agreed with the observation previously, but this was not the argument, but rather what's the root cause of the situation, since it pertains to aspect of the main debate on the thread: women and technology. The 2 games that you cited Arkham City and DC New 52, I've never heard of, so I won't dispute your claims. I would however underline the fact that they're recent releases and bear no weight in our current discussion.
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It's not an assertion because this isn't something up for debate." If he hasn't seen any compelling evidence of [Issue X], then for him it remains unresolved. Rather than being offended that his mind isn't made up the right way, you might consider sharing whatever evidence makes you convinced that [Issue X] is a problem. --- assertion - a positive statement or declaration, often without support or reason (from dicti…
If you assumed I was offended by his post, you're far off. I'm only disappointed. The evidence is this blog post and the countless ones like it saying how tough it is for a woman to get into programming without being bombarded with negative attention just because of their gender. As I said in the other reply, there is no way to perfectly measure discrimination. If you don't trust the various testimonies by women in t…
"CS education works best for people who already know how to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a practice in which they assume you already have some skill..."
"CS education also focuses a lot of effort on puzzles and very abstract concepts..."
"Women are less likely to jump up and say “me! me! me!” "
"Recognize the need for work-life balance. Most women still have primary responsibility for children and home."
I didn't bother with your other links.
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
By that logic, nothing can ever exist without some way to measure it, yet we know of things like emotions and attractiveness. Would you then say that "hatred" or "love" cannot exist because there isn't a hatred/love-measuring machine? Just because you have not seen it does not mean it doesn't exist. I don't have any experience with higher mathematics, but let's take programming. Would the existence of a women-centric…
Would a whites-centric golf club be proof enough of the discrimination white people face? Would a blog post of a white man in basketball expressing disdain for his black teammates similarly be evidence of discrimination against whites?
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The population of players of video games is dominated by teenager males because the developers of video games have teenager males in mind. I would not be so sure. We all played games like pac-man, goonies, super mario and such. I remember when we were kids that we had tons of somewhat gender neutral games, but boys were the ones mostly interested in playing. Looking back, I'm more convinced today that it was a cultur…
Look at the three games you listed. Pac- Man , Super Mario , Goonies (a game about young men ).
Does reality agree with this?
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely you can see that those lists doesn't answer the question. "Nineteenth century British geologist" isn't an innovation, and a woman contributing to a field does not mean that "diversity fuels innovation".
I'm sorry. I don't have a list of innovations that happened because an underprivileged person joined a profession and used their world view. I could say the rise in Facebook/casual gaming proves there was a market going untapped, but I'm not sure if that was done by a woman/casual gamer, so I'm hesitant to use it. I was hoping it would be apparent that bringing in a different perspective would help a brand or profess…
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#108Earlier 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…
It is about gender. Men don't want to work with women because they are afraid that the women won't be able to reason logically. They're afraid she might hide her insecurity behind politics and power trips, and she will be unable to be assertive without being controlling. Heaven forfend that this woman, like many women with careers, is bitchy in general! In that case, she may be outright incapable of working with logi…
No. I'd recommend you also ask a woman for her opinion, though, in case my male-ness has prevented me from seeing the obvious.
For future reference, statements made about privileged groups are not, generally, as offensive as those made about the unprivileged. For example:
My general view: if men are avoiding childcare due to the stereotypes and intolerance as you describe, then good riddance.
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The population of players of video games is dominated by teenager males because the developers of video games have teenager males in mind. Game developers have teenager males in mind because the original game developers _were_ teenager males. Farmville and Wii Sports show that there is a vast market for video games aimed at women that is only now starting to be explored.
The population of players of video games is dominated by teenager males because the developers of video games have teenager males in mind. I would not be so sure. We all played games like pac-man, goonies, super mario and such. I remember when we were kids that we had tons of somewhat gender neutral games, but boys were the ones mostly interested in playing. Looking back, I'm more convinced today that it was a cultur…
That's the kind of game we need.
Re: When She Codes, The Revolution’s Coming
#110> “If we allow the future of the web, software, hardware, video games, etc. to be conceptualized, created and maintained by just one sector of the population, it’s impossible to expect that it will serve the needs of the entire group. I don't think it is so bad, if there is an user base soon or later a web site will be created serving the needs of this user base, because this means profit for the site creator. It see…
The idea that men can't write code which women can feel comfortable using is absurd.