My experiences at a woman's programming workshop • Hacker News Board

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#101

Post by 1platypus » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #89

Udo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm wondering if Dave was actually guilty of what he's been accused of, or if his behavior was misinterpreted. In college and grad school I was usually the guy asking advanced questions, not because I was trying to show off or be a jerk, but because I was trying to gain a particular level of mastery of the material, and the way I gain that mastery is to ask questions during the process of absorbing the material. I ga…

From what I understood, it seems like Dave wasn't asking questions to better understand the material. His intent was to stump the instructor of the class, validating his mastery of the material.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#102

Post by 1123581321 » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

ClHans wrote: post #94

Dear HNers, Gender bias is a touchy subject in these tech blogs and the responses to this (yet another) article are, predictably, dismissive. It was one person's fault, there's no widespread gender bias, the instructor should have things differently, someone has seen women be jerks too, etc. So while there really does seem to be a measurable, observable difference in gender involvement in computing (e.g. in CS enroll…

The article has incorrect premises and arguments in it. It is easy to believe the CS community is more male-friendly and at the same time disagree with the author of this article. Your somewhat common assumption that the commenters here see women in CS without nuance actually slows down integration of women into CS and open source.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#103

Post by cema » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #93

whalesalad wrote: post #69

I think we simply need to start calling people out in person regardless of their gender. If I saw "Dave" acting like this I'd pull him aside and set him straight. And if he couldn't pull his shit together i'd ask him to leave. And if he couldn't manage to do that, I'd help him leave. Not that your post is passive-aggressive, but we need to start being proactive about this. In all realms of life. Call people out on th…

I think we also need to be willing to set people straight without ascribing bad motivations to them. Maybe Dave isn't a jerk or a showoff. Maybe he is like me. I learn by asking questions during the learning process. I feel like I'm not really learning very well unless I can say "does this material imply this other conclusion?" or "if we extended this to more dimensions, would we just have to change these things, or…

I have learned (hopefully learned!) to only use this style of learning when I am one-on-one with an instructor, and never in a classroom full of peer students.

Even then, not every instructor (or a person who effectively serves as an instructor) can stand this. Here I have to trust my people's judgement and sometimes I do misjudge. I recall one of my colleagues and coworkers with whom I could not maintain a meaningful oral conversation because we would misunderstand each other's verbal styles, however we were able to efficiently converse over email. This is certainly impossible in a classroom.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#104

Post by Mz » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

A couple of random thoughts about Dave:

A) Having participated in plenty of female majority online groups, my experiance has been that, yes, a single guy can have inordinate power. He is often deferred to and supported by a bevel of cooing ladies who seem oblivious to the power dynamic underlying the whole thing.

B) It is possible that Dave was not trying to be a jerk at all. Maybe he was just nervous around the ladies and subconsciously going into braggart mode in hopes of impressing someone and getting a date.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#105

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

1platypus wrote: post #101

lotharbot wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if Dave was actually guilty of what he's been accused of, or if his behavior was misinterpreted. In college and grad school I was usually the guy asking advanced questions, not because I was trying to show off or be a jerk, but because I was trying to gain a particular level of mastery of the material, and the way I gain that mastery is to ask questions during the process of absorbing the material. I ga…

From what I understood, it seems like Dave wasn't asking questions to better understand the material. His intent was to stump the instructor of the class, validating his mastery of the material.

Are you making an independent observation (ie, you were at the workshop and observed Dave) or repeating what was in the writeup?

Also, I'm genuinely curious: how do you tell the difference? What's the difference between Dave's (presumed) "stump the instructor to validate ego" questions and my "push the edges of my understanding, which may happen to stump the instructor if they haven't thought about it, and which may confirm to me that I've understood things correctly" questions?

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#106

Post by NotMyMorals » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

rogerbraun wrote: post #95

hk_kh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agreed. People often forget that some gender differences are what make each gender powerful. Gender equality should not be about expecting the same features in both genders, but about having the same rights.

Right. They should be separate but equal.

They should be separate but equal.

The horror - they even have segregated bathrooms!

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#107

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

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

It is fascinating how rapidly discussion descended from single anecdote into gender-wide generalizations (always negative, of course) and single possible reasons why everything is wrong with the world? Impossibility of maintaining reasonable discussion about this topic without such things invariably appearing almost immediately and descending the whole discussion into a blame-fest is depressing.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#108

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:33 PM UTC

cema wrote: post #103

lotharbot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we also need to be willing to set people straight without ascribing bad motivations to them. Maybe Dave isn't a jerk or a showoff. Maybe he is like me. I learn by asking questions during the learning process. I feel like I'm not really learning very well unless I can say "does this material imply this other conclusion?" or "if we extended this to more dimensions, would we just have to change these things, or…

I have learned (hopefully learned!) to only use this style of learning when I am one-on-one with an instructor, and never in a classroom full of peer students. Even then, not every instructor (or a person who effectively serves as an instructor) can stand this. Here I have to trust my people's judgement and sometimes I do misjudge. I recall one of my colleagues and coworkers with whom I could not maintain a meaningfu…

> "I ... only use this style of learning when I am one-on-one with an instructor"

I have had circumstances where other students have thanked me for being persistent with my questions, and for forcing the instructor to clarify. (This was more common in grad school than undergrad.) So I have a hard time accepting the "just don't use this in a classroom" solution.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#109

Post by irahul » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #99

smsm42 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good reasons for gender-segregated education? (I hope it's not offtopic since the article itself discusses this)

The claim is that there is a notable difference in group dynamics.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I find it hard to believe that all females(or males) exhibit same behavioral and learning traits. And even if this happens to be true, then why stop at gender-segregation? How about divide on gender, then divide on introvert-extrovert, then divide on active-passive, then divide on "external validation seeker"-"doesn't give a shit about external validation", then divide on "interested in learning"-"interested in getting the fuck out of here"...I am pretty sure you will be left with a class of 1 in the end.

The only division I would be interested in is segregating the fast learners(whatever be the reason - is sharp, already knows stuff, studies outside class) from regular learners, so that fast learners don't get bored or try to derail the class, and slow learners don't feel left out.

PS - I am not implying that you are supporting gender-segregated education. I am making a general point.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#110

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #99

smsm42 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good reasons for gender-segregated education? (I hope it's not offtopic since the article itself discusses this)

The claim is that there is a notable difference in group dynamics.

I'm sure there is, but you can segregate the students in many ways to change the dynamics - race, parental income level, personality type, eye color, etc. - but will this change be positive? See e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/education/23single.html?_r...