LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software • Hacker News Board

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#21

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 10:18 AM UTC

kondro wrote: post #20

jacques_chester wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience, it always pays to substitute the subject to the broader version when determining if something is discriminatory. How does that follow? I'd genuinely like to know your reasoning.

I come from a minority myself (gay from the ironically named Queensland) and find people say the stupidest things that, if modified as suggested, they would be embarrassed to say about themselves.

Gay in Queensland is a tough ask, depending on how far north you are.

But I'm still not following.

How does substituting in "majority" for "minority" undermine the case for the minority?

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#22

Post by Joeboy » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 3:38 PM UTC

tanglisha wrote: post #4

kondro wrote: post #3

Sigh… if women wanted to be developers they would become developers. Almost all the successful developers I know started creating software (or at least wanted to make computers do things that they weren't immediately able to do) at a young age. Even you believe it is an issue (and I don't know why it is necessary that 50% of all developers need to be women), this isn't a problem you can fix by talking to a bunch of a…

Disclaimer: I'm one of the people on this project. The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. The point is to help women that are qualified but don't interview well or know how to deal with some of the issues unique to women that either raise eyebrows or can cause confusion in an interview. The women we're targeting include recent graduates, those who left the…

> The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope.

That seems like a shame. A lot is said about the awfulness of tech culture for women. I think it would be good to see more made of the upsides (the money's good, the hours can be convenient, and most of aren't actually as awful as we're made out to be).

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#23

Post by tanglisha » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 9:45 PM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #22

tanglisha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the people on this project. The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. The point is to help women that are qualified but don't interview well or know how to deal with some of the issues unique to women that either raise eyebrows or can cause confusion in an interview. The women we're targeting include recent graduates, those who left the…

> The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. That seems like a shame. A lot is said about the awfulness of tech culture for women. I think it would be good to see more made of the upsides (the money's good, the hours can be convenient, and most of aren't actually as awful as we're made out to be).

That's what we'll be talking about at GeekGirlCon. We can't fit everything cool into every project :)

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#24

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:42 PM UTC

oellegaard wrote: post #8

kondro wrote: post #3

Sigh… if women wanted to be developers they would become developers. Almost all the successful developers I know started creating software (or at least wanted to make computers do things that they weren't immediately able to do) at a young age. Even you believe it is an issue (and I don't know why it is necessary that 50% of all developers need to be women), this isn't a problem you can fix by talking to a bunch of a…

I couldn't agree more. I had this discussion with several people during Djangocon EU, where we had several talks at the conference about women in the community. People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code.

[deleted]

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#25

Post by araneae » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

oellegaard wrote: post #8

kondro wrote: post #3

Sigh… if women wanted to be developers they would become developers. Almost all the successful developers I know started creating software (or at least wanted to make computers do things that they weren't immediately able to do) at a young age. Even you believe it is an issue (and I don't know why it is necessary that 50% of all developers need to be women), this isn't a problem you can fix by talking to a bunch of a…

I couldn't agree more. I had this discussion with several people during Djangocon EU, where we had several talks at the conference about women in the community. People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code.

As a female Django dev, I'm glad I wasn't there. That would have made me feel extremely unwelcome.

Re: LadyCoders 2012 -- a Kickstarter project to help more women in software

#26

Post by araneae » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 11:57 PM UTC

kondro wrote: post #5

tanglisha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the people on this project. The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. The point is to help women that are qualified but don't interview well or know how to deal with some of the issues unique to women that either raise eyebrows or can cause confusion in an interview. The women we're targeting include recent graduates, those who left the…

The trouble is, none of this (with the exception of childbirth, and there are plenty of stay-at-home Dads) is gender-specific. Unfortunately, all continuing to enforce how special women are (either positively or negatively, in this case) is to keep women thinking they need specialised tools to succeed. As a man, no one taught me how to interview well, or come back to the workforce after taking an extended break to ca…

>Unfortunately, all continuing to enforce how special women are (either positively or negatively, in this case) is to keep women thinking they need specialised tools to succeed.

It emphasizes it to you. As a woman, it painstakingly obvious I am "special." At the last tech event I was at I was one of three women; one was the girlfriend of the organizer, one was a non technical person looking for technical help for a start-up, and the other was me. I felt awkward and stood out like a sore thumb. There's nothing that a bunch of women trying to raise money to encourage women to be in tech could do to make me feel MORE awkward at events where it's obvious I stand out.

Look, I think the project itself is kind of silly. But it could bring more women into tech. And more women in tech won't make me stand out more; it will make me stand out LESS. That's the only way it's going to shake out.