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My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

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Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#31

Post by pauljburke »

Unless I'm misreading this (and I have the mother of all migraines at present so it's possible) weren't both the author of the post and Dave volunteers helping out rather than students? In which case shouldn't whoever was running the session just shut them down since the whole point is to help the people attending to learn rather than intellectual willy waving?

I used to be Dave when I was younger (still am if I don't keep a lid on it; I'm sure empathy is a wonderful thing but I've just had to learn to fake it over the years). So my preferred solution would have been to ask "does anyone else have any questions or are the rest of you secure enough in your own ability to not feel the need to advertise?". But then I guess there'd have been two jerks in the room and only one of them being helpful.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#32

Post by rmc »

mrleinad wrote: post #18
jellicle wrote: post #11

That's not a call for single-sex education. That's a call for good teachers who are willing to crack down on the class clown. There's always a class clown, and he always needs to be cracked down upon for the good of the class. This is teaching 101. Sorry you didn't have a good teacher. >Dave was really excited by the class, and, like me and the other volunteers, had a lot of experience with Python. Sounds like Dave w…

> That's a learned technique for getting assistance. It worked on you, didn't it? I was going to point out the same thing. A women playing dumb to get help from a man, is not uncommon at all.

Yeah! Those sneaky women! All of em will con you and all us men into helping them. Sneaky deceitful women.

And people wonder why women don't like male dominated tech events

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#33

Post by Tichy »

What part of the experience showed that single sex workshops might be better? Because there wouldn't be female knowledgeable jerks (either because women are never jerks, or because they are never knowledgeable, or why?)? Or smart women would not be self-deprecating among other women?

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#34

Post by ordinary »

Udo wrote: post #19
gphilip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, for fuck's sake, how is some Dave being jerk is making gender difference apparent? >The guy was at the wrong place, and was being a show-off. >But no, you must attribute it to his gender. If you read the article again, you may find that the gender difference which became apparent to the author has to do with the /response/ to Dave's behaviour, and not with his behaviour /per se/. Also, here is a (perhaps interes…

Yes, it has to do with the response, but I can't agree with the main point of it which is due to selection bias I think (not gender differences): To me, and I suspect most men, we’d see Dave’s behavior as a call to arms. Dave was raising the stakes and even though his behavior was clearly rude, it also demonstrated that he had a mastery over the material. If this is the core of the article's point, I don't agree with…

I don't like how the article implies this makes me less of a man.

I don't think it does that, but nevertheless, this raises an interesting question that I've been having real trouble answering, so maybe you (or others) could help me out: why do you dislike it when people make such implications? Do you feel you're worth less if you're perceived to be less manly?

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#35

Post by NotMyMorals »

derleth wrote: post #2

Very interesting story. I wonder if it would have been as effective without the male villain. The trope reinforces the moral, but it kind of beats us over the head with it.

I wonder if it would have been as effective without the male villain. The trope reinforces the moral, but it kind of beats us over the head with it.

The author clearly stated he felt challenged by the display of dominance by another male, and wrote this blog to heal his wounded ego and display his superior abilities at leading women.

So, no, it probably wouldn't have been effective without the male villain. The competing male was a "jerk" and the damsel in distress just needed to be protected from the "jerk" by the knight in shining armour.

All-female classes taught by a single male teacher have proven to be quite effective.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#36

Post by nuttendorfer »

derleth wrote: post #8
bitboxer wrote: post #4

That bully is a reason why on railsgirls events you have tables for differen skill levels. You could easily send that guy to another table with more advanced people without throwing him out.

This. This is a wonderful idea. (In fact, in my evil little mind, I might be tempted to send a Dave to a table just a bit above him, to show him that he's only hot shit in his own mind.)

Dave would be wasting his time if he was in a table where he already knew everything. You'd be doing him a favor.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#37

Post by s_baby »

simula67 wrote: post #27

At the risk of sounding petty let me say that, I am male and I can only speak about my part of the problem. 1. Do I feel bad about women achieving stuff in life ? Yes. 2. Am I ashamed of the above fact? Yes. Lets face it, from what I have been able to figure out, this is the case with a lot of men in this world. Question we must be asking is : how do we go about solving this problem? This is not as simple as just dev…

>Painting men as super villains in some grand 'Dan Brown'ian plot of conspiracy against women will NOT work.

It works because it plays into traditional gender roles. You don't have to be a bleeding heart liberal to believe women are the "gentler" sex that needs the protection of society. Just good ol' fashioned chivalry.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#38

Post by yummyfajitas »

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #23
yummyfajitas wrote: post #9

This article begs the question: why do women respond disproportionately badly to the "helpful jerk"?

The real question should be: why does a class respond proportionately badly to the 'helpful jerk'? We can't reasonably say this is a female specific phenomenon when our only point of reference is a female-only class. Send the guy to a bunch of different classes (of mixed and single gender, and of mixed skill-level) and see how they all respond. If one guy is monopolising the time and help available in the class, it s…

We can't reasonably say this is a female specific phenomenon when our only point of reference is a female-only class.

I assumed the point of the author was that this was a female-specific phenomenon, since the theme of his post was gender. Also, because the author said so:

"To me, and I suspect most men, we’d see Dave’s behavior as a call to arms."

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#39

Post by [deleted] »

rmc wrote: post #32
mrleinad wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a learned technique for getting assistance. It worked on you, didn't it? I was going to point out the same thing. A women playing dumb to get help from a man, is not uncommon at all.

Yeah! Those sneaky women! All of em will con you and all us men into helping them. Sneaky deceitful women. And people wonder why women don't like male dominated tech events

[deleted]

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#40

Post by NotMyMorals »

Symmetry wrote: post #25
pwpwp wrote: post #12

Given that IME most women's eyes immediately glaze over when the word "computer" is mentioned, I doubt that "our community isn’t great at encouraging women contributors" is the reason why few women are in computing.

Given that all the women there had explicitly signed up to do programming, I doubt that any of them have eyes that glaze over at the mention of computers. Surprisingly for some people, there are variations among women just as there are variations among men. I'm pretty sure that most men also have no interest in computer programming. Finally: http://xkcd.com/385/

Which is probably why pwpwp didn't specifically refer to the self-selected women in the class, but made a general point about the industry and the ridiculous attempts to impose a completely artificial 50/50 gender ratio.

The comic could have just as easily said "one girl is good at math therefore exactly as many girls as boys are good at math."

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