Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#91

Post by Wintamute » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 9:56 AM UTC

rmc wrote: post #86

belorn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While and rather excellent article on why the IT field is a suitable career, good grief, the sexism politics has really entrenched itself into people mindset. It almost boggles my mind. Here some supposedly sexist snippets from "scenarios you may occasionally find yourself in when working as a girl in tech". Colleague: “So...you are the new designer?" (As if "so...you are the new Foobar" would not be said to any new…

How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…

In those situations the assumptions may, or may not, originate from core racist/sexist beliefs. You need to be careful going around labelling people like that just because they made an assumption.

For better or worse it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder. If I was in a rush looking for the new freelance designer one morning and walked up to an unfamiliar girl sat at a Mac Pro and asked her "Are you the new designer", I'm not being sexist, I'm just making an assumption based on the data I have. Designers and coders, whether male or female, both look the same: they're likely to be intelligent, smart and trendy looking and sat at a workstation.

Now, if in a similar situation I walked up to an intelligent, smart and trendy looking Indian freelancer sat at a MacBook and asked "Are you the new cleaner?", then that's totally different and inexcusable. I had enough data there not to make any assumptions, and it would betray racist core beliefs.

See the difference? Of course every situation is different, but I think the OP's example in this case was weak. We don't need everyone walking around on egg shells, paranoid that people are judging their every stated assumption against some kind of uber harsh politically correct scale.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#92

Post by scotty79 » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 9:56 AM UTC

sandollars wrote: post #34

Progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go. This happened in a talk at a programming/web/tech event two weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/4hL6X.jpg

Do tech women identify somehow with this girl in the picture and feel offended?

When guy sees some looser made fun of on some picture he thinks: "Hehe. What a looser!" as he sees almost no resemblance between him and the looser.

Does women feel more strongly connected to other women because of shared gender than men?

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#93

Post by belorn » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:14 AM UTC

rmc wrote: post #86

belorn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While and rather excellent article on why the IT field is a suitable career, good grief, the sexism politics has really entrenched itself into people mindset. It almost boggles my mind. Here some supposedly sexist snippets from "scenarios you may occasionally find yourself in when working as a girl in tech". Colleague: “So...you are the new designer?" (As if "so...you are the new Foobar" would not be said to any new…

How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…

Of course one can assume a sexist intention behind the remark. My question is why? Is it simply because she is a woman and thus we should assume that anything anyone say to her is sexist?

Are we really that far gone, and if so, how are we ever going to get work to become a gender neutral environment? Assuming bad faith is not a road to take.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#94

Post by belorn » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:25 AM UTC

Wintamute wrote: post #91

rmc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…

In those situations the assumptions may, or may not, originate from core racist/sexist beliefs. You need to be careful going around labelling people like that just because they made an assumption. For better or worse it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder. If I was in a rush looking for the new freelance designer one morning and walke…

Maybe I am too young, work at a too small company, or has too much academia in me, but I have a hard time imagine myself ever trying to guess people work based on gender or skin color. It would be like trying to guess peoples future by looking into their hands.

The only person I would suggest being a cleaner, is one with a white apron, a big logo, with large visible name tag, and carrying a mop. That assumption is based on clothing standards at fast food stores, and its still a rather crude assumption.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#95

Post by irisshoor » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:30 AM UTC

atomical wrote: post #4

"This is a bit of a delicate topic. Quite often I am the only female person in the team and have to be careful not to take advantage of the perks that come with it. Guys are fascinated and scared by girls who roll up their sleeves and take on a job that society labels as “men’s work”. If you’ve ever drilled a hole, skinned a rabbit, or changed a tyre you know what I mean. As I mentioned earlier, guys will definitely…

More than once I was the only female in a team (including a 20 people team). I think that the initial reaction of most of the team members is not about 'hey, look, it's a girl! what are we suppose to do with it?' like it sounds on the article. When there's a tight knit team and someone a bit different joins there's always worry that it's going to affect the existing culture, it doesn't matter if it's a girl, someone older, someone very young or someone from a different country. Once you play the 'girl' card, you remain different. I'm not saying that you have to start drinking beer all day long and tell StarWars jokes, just be yourself and align with the team (same advice for men as well). You might be liked more when you play the 'girl' card but that's not the right way for a promotion (been there, done that). Other than that, great article, useful and I like the images.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#96

Post by lloeki » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:37 AM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #38

Articles like this are what are going to get girls into computing. They need to know that there are other normal girls, just like them, that do this for a living. I got my ex-girlfriend into software development. She comes off as a very stereotypical girly girl. She likes clothes, shopping, and top 40 pop music. I convinced her to take an intro programming class her sophomore year of college. Now she's a software eng…

> All it took her was a little convincing that she could do it

I don't know if it's society or what, but it seems a lot of girls suffer from this (conscious or not) line of thinking.

I'm versed in science (esp. math and physics) and like to talk about such subjects so I've been regularly asked for help, and every single time I helped a girl the cause of their demise was lack of confidence. Contrary to guys (which seem to have confidence in excess but need some form of support), telling them upfront is useless because it's so ingrained that I have to take a more subtle route. I explain her something complex, and keep going deeper until (usually takes about ten minutes) there's a a-ha, not about the subject at hand but about herself, a moment where she realizes that at every step she got everything I said, and now she gets a glimpse something so complex that ten minutes ago she thought it would forever be unfathomable to her, when I did not actually explain so much as pragmatically but subtly demonstrate that yes, she can do it. Subsequent results at school, even in unrelated disciplines and without more training, are off the charts.

It seems the "mens do the real stuff" society thing is so pervasive that it permeates through and makes them lose the confidence required, and they just need to be bootstrapped out of it so that they can finally say "This is within my reach".

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#97

Post by archangel_one » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:38 AM UTC

sebcat wrote: post #89

"Guys are fascinated and scared by girls who roll up their sleeves and take on a job that society labels as “men’s work”" Actually, I'm fascinated and scared by all IT people who roll up their sleeves and do manual labour.

An in return, I'm always slightly shocked by this kind of attitude. Just because I write code for a living doesn't mean that I had to forget how to do everything remotely practical first. If I'm confronted by a job that requires manual labour, I don't just stand there saying "oh I'm an IT person, I can't possibly do this".

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#98

Post by Trezoid » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:46 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #92

sandollars wrote: post #34

Progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go. This happened in a talk at a programming/web/tech event two weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/4hL6X.jpg

Do tech women identify somehow with this girl in the picture and feel offended? When guy sees some looser made fun of on some picture he thinks: "Hehe. What a looser!" as he sees almost no resemblance between him and the looser. Does women feel more strongly connected to other women because of shared gender than men?

What have you got against WD-40?

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#99

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:49 AM UTC

rmc wrote: post #86

belorn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While and rather excellent article on why the IT field is a suitable career, good grief, the sexism politics has really entrenched itself into people mindset. It almost boggles my mind. Here some supposedly sexist snippets from "scenarios you may occasionally find yourself in when working as a girl in tech". Colleague: “So...you are the new designer?" (As if "so...you are the new Foobar" would not be said to any new…

How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…

Hang on, that's a little unfair. If you work in an office, and you know they have hired one person, and that is a cleaner / designer, walking unto the new face in the office and saying hi you must be the new cleaner / designer is not a prejudicial assumption. Especially if they are sitting in front of Blender / a mop.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#100

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 10:51 AM UTC

Wintamute wrote: post #91

rmc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…

In those situations the assumptions may, or may not, originate from core racist/sexist beliefs. You need to be careful going around labelling people like that just because they made an assumption. For better or worse it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder. If I was in a rush looking for the new freelance designer one morning and walke…

I think my fat fingers may have down voted you - despite you expressing my own thoughts, better and earlier. Cheers