My granny is a programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: My granny is a programmer

#31

Post by tsvk » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 2:59 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #29

readme wrote: post #2

Afaik, gender equality was much better in the USSR than it is today in the US.

> Afaik, gender equality was much better in the USSR than it is today in the US. I wouldn't call it gender equality, when it's apparently limited to a certain field (IT) and when comparing then with now. I'm not a historian or a cultural expert, but I do know two things: * The majority of software developers in the early days were women. Programming was seen as clergy work, administration, and the existing administra…

> Programming was seen as clergy work

You probably mean "clerical"?

Re: My granny is a programmer

#32

Post by StefanKarpinski » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

She also looks like a total badass.

Re: My granny is a programmer

#33

Post by ajuc » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 5:19 PM UTC

klibertp wrote: post #4

foohbarbaz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm... No. Not then and not today.

Well... It depends, I suppose, what you define as equality. I'm too young to actually remember this, but I know from various sources that women under communist regimes, at least in central Europe, were seen as capable of working as hard as men. There are many posters of women driving agricultural machines (I don't know the word in English - something that's used to harvest cereal) and doing various other works that a…

Yes, the official propaganda was all about gender equality, there were movies, posters and newspaper stories about "a working-class woman" (one popular character from "40-latek" series even was called that - her most common line "I'm a working-class woman, I do not fear any job", and in each episode she was doing sth different).

At the same time 99% of the party leaders, managers, directors etc were male, even at regional level. There were still trades where woman were rare (woman on tractor was rare, casue not many woman wanted to do that for a living, woman as a bank director were rare just because). But no problems with getting to the university (incidentaly - you had much better chance to get to university if you were child of industrial worker of farmer, than if your parents were "inteligencja").

Stereotypes about math, programming and gender are also different between countries. Being good at math is cool in Poland, for example, even in primary school. There are some stereotypes about woman similar to that in USA, but nothing on such scale. From my experience around 10% programmers are female here.

Re: My granny is a programmer

#34

Post by elisehein » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

eric_bullington wrote: post #22

elisehein wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've grown up with the same perceptions of gender equality in the Soviet job market. However, I get the feeling that this does not so much have to do with a heightened sense of morality or anything, as it does with the fact that work in the USSR was simply a chore or an obligation that was assigned to you. Often people didn't do a particular job because it suited their personality or they were exceptionally good at i…

That's not what was suggested in this story, at least. She seemed to have an aptitude in math and interest in computers, so she choose a university where she could study CS.

And that is wonderful for her :)

Re: My granny is a programmer

#35

Post by jeza » Sat, Mar 09, 2013, 12:32 AM UTC

arocks wrote: post #16

jeza wrote: post #5

This doesn't surprise me. In Europe it's not uncommon to find women in computer science or engineering. In the US it's not unheard of. In Australia it's extremely rare and most of those that you do find were born overseas.

In India, you will find an equal number of women and men in computer science engineering. There is no stigma associated with being a programmer either (It was never extremely uncool). In practice, I have found that there are women who are as good as men when it comes to programming. I strongly believe that women don't have any inherent disadvantage. It is just social conditioning.

Your assessment that it's social conditioning and not an inherent disadvantage is consistent with my own observations. The fact that different countries have vastly different percentage make up of females suggest it is purely a cultural thing.

Unfortunately once such a pattern is established it's hard to break. I myself find the lack of diversity in the field to be off putting. I can't imagine what it'd be like for females.