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Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

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

#131

Post by kalkin »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #123
rmc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several definitions of sexism, one is essentially "taking someone's sex or gender into account when making a decision". This appears to be the definition you're using. It's a very simple, easy to understand, easy to identify definiton. It also means that in many cases (e.g. hiring in an IT company), men can be the victims of sexism. There's another definition, which is actions that's designed to maintain &…

if modern UK life was a video game, "male" would be an easier difficulty level than "female". Can you explain this in concrete terms? This meme is repeated often, but few people actually explain what it means. Taking it literally, it would suggest that monsters receive +20% elemental resistance when women attack them with an ice-infused mace. But that's probably not what you mean. There are statistically less problem…

Can you explain this in concrete terms?

Women still make 77 cents to the male dollar. Women have much higher incidences of anxiety and depression disorders. Women are substantially more likely to be the victims of domestic violence, and 1 in 5 are raped. Etc etc. These statistics don't guarantee that every woman is worse off than every man - clearly that's not true - but they do mean that women have, on average, more difficult problems to deal with in their lives.

If we are discussing statistical incidence of problems, why choose "male" and "female" as your reference classes? Why not simply choose incidence of problems as the variable to slice on?

There are statistically significant differences in various problems between men and women, which are correlated, and which we have good reason to believe are causally related - because if you're paying any attention at all, you know that men and women are treated differently in our society. (And if you investigate further, you find you can explain what you see with a historical and social analysis that looks at things like the subordination of women in the family and the social division of labor with the development of class society, the hegemony of oppressive political and cultural ideologies, and so on.)

Usually, if you're trying to fix something, it's worth trying to figure out what the root causes are.

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

#132

Post by asnyder »

laumars wrote: post #105

"Computer languages and “real” languages are actually very similar." I really couldn't disagree with that more. Sure, some languages' syntax borrow English words (Python, Pascal, VB, etc), but that's such a minor similarity. Those words are completely arbitrary and the syntax could have been in Klingon for all the difference it would make to the compiler. Computer languages are a maths language; albeit a very very du…

Don't know why you felt it was necessary to take a dig at PHP, as if PHP is the cause of all bad web programming practices. Nowadays, PHP is very much evolved, and the abundance of mature frameworks have completely removed the most of the inconsistency issues.There are in fact variable declarations and types in PHP, there's even type-hinting to enforce types.

The fact of the matter is that many web developers fall into bad practices via laziness, copy & paste syndrome, regardless of whether the language they're using has strict types or not.

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

#133

Post by kalkin »

jrogers65 wrote: post #111
EliRivers wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That looks like sexism to me." You say that as if letting someone's gender affect your decisions is somehow, magically, inherently always ALWAYS wrong. It isn't. Some situations it is. Some situations it is not.

I'd just like to express my astonishment and disgust at the fact that there are people who defend sexism and prejudice in this day and age. People like you make me ashamed to be human.

Jeez, as far as I can tell the person you're replying to is just defending affirmative action.

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

#134

Post by michaelochurch »

IsaacL wrote: post #130
michaelochurch wrote: post #113

I'll make a controversial observation, but it's worthy of discussion. If you're a woman of average or better looks, you have one under-spoken superpower. Namely, how you interact with other men will have a huge effect on their social status. I'm not talking about overt flirtation (don't do it) or office relationships (avoid, avoid, avoid). I'm talking about more subtle stuff, like who a woman smiles at, who she initi…

Out of interest, are you familiar with Venkatesh Rao's "Be Slightly Evil" mailing list? He has a similar worldview to you (cynical realpolitick as an amoral tool, usable for good or evil).

No. I'll look into it.

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

#135

Post by kalkin »

astrofinch wrote: post #75
minamea wrote: post #70

"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." "you can get away with a lot of things just by fluttering your eyelashes and being a bit cheeky, which is a habit that is so easy to get into. I have to confess I’ve done it myself because if you are surrounded by guys all day you quickly feel powerful."…

I think from a harm minimization perspective, it makes sense to treat complaints of sexism from the minority faction more seriously than complaints of sexism from the majority faction. Also, I disagree that people would complain if the same stuff was written by a guy working in nursing.

You don't mean minority/majority, but yes.

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

#136

Post by acheron »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #102
rmc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are different, but they are so close aswell. After all how much job movement is there between IT & development? Lots. Compare that to the job movemement between IT & being lawyer (not that much) etc.

I wish there was more movement between IT and lawyers; then we'd have some developers who understand data protection and copyright principles and some lawyers who understand IT.

Let's start with getting some lawyers to understand math first before moving on to IT.

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

#137

Post by rmc »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #123
rmc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several definitions of sexism, one is essentially "taking someone's sex or gender into account when making a decision". This appears to be the definition you're using. It's a very simple, easy to understand, easy to identify definiton. It also means that in many cases (e.g. hiring in an IT company), men can be the victims of sexism. There's another definition, which is actions that's designed to maintain &…

if modern UK life was a video game, "male" would be an easier difficulty level than "female". Can you explain this in concrete terms? This meme is repeated often, but few people actually explain what it means. Taking it literally, it would suggest that monsters receive +20% elemental resistance when women attack them with an ice-infused mace. But that's probably not what you mean. There are statistically less problem…

Can you explain this in concrete terms? This meme is repeated often, but few people actually explain what it means.

Basically males often do not have to put with things that women often do. The concrete example is in this article. If you're a male contracter and start in a new IT place, and the other co-workers know nothing else about you beside (a) you're working here and (b) you are male, then they are much less likely to presume you are not a programmer than if you were female. See the OP for more examples of IT.

In general terms, some other examples:

• If a man gets drunk and passes out at a party, he rarely has to worry about more than someone shaving his eyebrows/hair or someone writing on his face with a marker. Women have to worry about being sexually molested or rape.

• If a straight man goes to a bar, and doesn't want to meet a new person, he's much more likely to be left alone and not propositioned than a woman. (i.e. he can have a quite drink with/without friends without being interrupted). If a straight man wants to experience more of what women feel, go to a gay bar.

• A man can walk past a building site (say) with it being unlikely that someone will shout something suggestive at him.

• When it's dark and they've had a beer or two, a man has a wider selection of streets he can walk down to get home. Less hassle, take the direct route! (I know men are often victims of other kinds of attacks & robberies, that doesn't mean they are not less likely to suffer other kinds).

• A straight man is much less likely to be the victim of physical or sexual abuse from his spouse than a straight woman.

etc.

This is what I mean by "men have it easier (in some regards)"

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

#138

Post by rmc »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #123
rmc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several definitions of sexism, one is essentially "taking someone's sex or gender into account when making a decision". This appears to be the definition you're using. It's a very simple, easy to understand, easy to identify definiton. It also means that in many cases (e.g. hiring in an IT company), men can be the victims of sexism. There's another definition, which is actions that's designed to maintain &…

if modern UK life was a video game, "male" would be an easier difficulty level than "female". Can you explain this in concrete terms? This meme is repeated often, but few people actually explain what it means. Taking it literally, it would suggest that monsters receive +20% elemental resistance when women attack them with an ice-infused mace. But that's probably not what you mean. There are statistically less problem…

why choose "male" and "female" as your reference classes?

Because there has been a very long history of lots of people doing that, and the result being that females were often denied lots of things, purely for being female. This procress may or may not have fully stopped by now, definitly continues in various parts of the world in different defrees. We should watch out for it, and be wary.

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

#139

Post by jrogers65 »

kalkin wrote: post #133
jrogers65 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd just like to express my astonishment and disgust at the fact that there are people who defend sexism and prejudice in this day and age. People like you make me ashamed to be human.

Jeez, as far as I can tell the person you're replying to is just defending affirmative action.

Many people argue that affirmative action is institutionalized racism.

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

#140

Post by rmc »

jrogers65 wrote: post #129
rmc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Yes, it is accurate to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say that, but is it right and moral and nice to say it? Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us men to presum…

I think that the point the guy is trying to make is that there is nothing sexist about this. If I saw a new guy at work with a beard, jumbo sized cup of coffee, glasses sitting in front of a dual monitor setup, I would assume that he is a programmer. Does that make me sexist against men? Or prejudiced against people with beards or coffee drinkers? There's an old saying which appears to have been lost somewhere along…

There is a difference between "everybody should walk on eggshells" and "there should be standards". It's not black or white, "eggshells" or "f* you I can say what I want", there is (millions of) middle ground(s). HN has rules and guidelines about how to reply to people ( http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). Does that mean "everyone has to walk on eggshells around here"? No, there are rules, but it's not mad. Hence the existence of rules does not mean "everyone has to walk on eggshells".
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