Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what's a good solution? Sounds like a snappy idea with no meat.
It's a parody Twitter account.
Humor, not parody.
On being a girl in computer science - a confession
91–100 of 305 posts
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#92If you look at the real pioneers of computer science, people like Turing and Babbage, two women jump right off the page: Ada Byron and Grace Hopper. Women belong in CS, because it belongs to them. They were there at the start, just as much as the men. As a 55-year-old man, I'm pretty sure I've experienced discrimination because of my age. Situations where people couldn't see beyond the wrinkles and gray hair and see…
what if "woman in CS" programs can help to get woman with intellect and passion into CS?
I've been in the software industry for a several decades (I have a grey beard if that helps). I have never encountered any man that I felt had a gender bias against women in computing, other than if he was an ass in real life.
My wife is also a software engineer - and she has never had an issue (to the best of my knowledge).
What I find frustrating is that some people choose to identify themselves as a gender. Gender becomes a convenient excuse. I can't tell you how strongly I oppose this "I define myself by my gender" view. Feminism, chauvinism, the works - I strongly oppose the lot of them.
I'll say it simply ... you either see yourself as a person or a gender. If you don't see yourself as a gender, then you'll let equity (ie. NOT equality) drive your view of yourself and others.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
So here's the question: How old is your daughter? And where do you suppose she got the idea that programming is "a boy thing"? I suspect that the answers to these questions is a good lead to understanding why women are under-represented among programmers / techies.
That actually is the question I've been struggling with. She's only 7 and I've tried to keep her quite insulated from that kind of idea but it seems to just bleed in from all over the place. Since I've tuned out powerless to stop the bias from getting in, I've started to really think about the best way to help her rise above it.
If I had to take a stab in the dark, I would guess she is:
1) Familiar with the image of a "geek" (how could you possibly not be?)
2) Intelligent enough to notice that the image of a geek is always of a male
3) Also intelligent enough to connect the dots between "programming" and "geek" based on what she knows of geeks.
Children are often a lot sharper than we give them credit. It doesn't need to be explicit; they will pick up on subtle things like omissions, and they will connect the dots.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#94IMHO Women are doing great in CS. They are not doing great in 20 hs/day crazy devops/IT work that nowadays passes for CS, that only men from 20-30 can endure. Edit: Right, women also can physically endure the developer death march, it's just they don't want to. And I don't blame them.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#95My initial reaction to these types of observations about sexism/racism is to agree with the underlying sentiment of the post: give a completely blank stare and say in all seriousness "why wouldn't it be okay for a girl to be a programmer? What does that have to do with anything? Do what you love, and screw everyone else"
Then, I remember that for centuries people have been actively attempting to be dicks to other people that aren't "like them" and exclude, harass, and demean other people for no other reason than they are afraid that giving dignity to someone else somehow takes it from themselves. It's a thing, and it happens – way more than you might think. And ignoring that it ever happens will not make it go away. In fact ignoring it will only continue to empower those that have the power to abuse it.
So, as much as my gut wants to say that stuff like "women in cs" meetings are unnecessary, I know that they are very necessary. If only as a reminder to everyone else "there is still a problem, so remember: don't be a dick"
If only it were that simple of a problem to solve.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#96If you look at the real pioneers of computer science, people like Turing and Babbage, two women jump right off the page: Ada Byron and Grace Hopper. Women belong in CS, because it belongs to them. They were there at the start, just as much as the men. As a 55-year-old man, I'm pretty sure I've experienced discrimination because of my age. Situations where people couldn't see beyond the wrinkles and gray hair and see…
what if "woman in CS" programs can help to get woman with intellect and passion into CS?
People who work in CS are known to work with scientific methods. "What if" is simply not enough.
To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
We, that is people who work in the field of computer science, need to demand more than guesses and beliefs when dealing with "solutions" to gender inequality. If someone has an ideas on how to improve the community and industry, those ideas need to be first tested and validated using the scientific method. Testing in Social studies are not a new concept, so we already got the tools we need.
If "woman in CS" programs can help to get women with intellect and passion into CS, it should be testable. Do that first, and then argue for it use when there is data backing it up.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#97The problem with this type of the thinking is the same thing you see when it comes to racism in general: "If we just stop mentioning it, it will go away", "programs to counter racism are racist", etc. Not talking about racism/sexism etc will not make it go away. Kids are very perceptive, they notice the apparent differences in acceptable behavior very early on; they are internalizing it subconsciously whether we brin…
It's not a choice between ignoring or "tackling it head on". In the early days of tackling some kind of systemic bias, it makes sense to talk about it all the time. Now that most everyone agrees it's a problem, it seems (to me) like the most productive way to move forward is to only point out sexism in specific instances where it occurs, providing reinforcement to help change our mental habits, making pariahs of persistent offenders. But if you continue to "tackle" the problem, you're just badgering people about things you've already convinced them on, which leads to annoyance and backlash, as we've seen.
I'm not sure about girl-centric CS activities. Sometimes guys and girls just want to hang out and do ${activity} with members of the same sex. We can have guy-only or girl-only camping trips without any problem. Camping is pretty well-established to be a unisex activity. You'd think the same would be true for CS or any other field, in an unbiased world. But who could get away with an explicitly guy-only CS event? It would be politically difficult to say the least. Something is clearly wrong here.
Maybe girl-only gatherings, as the next step past mixed gatherings, help further the subconscious idea that women have a natural place in ${activity}. How's that for compensating? But this sort of falls flat when it's hard for guys to do the same. And as a blunt weapon against sexism, well, it still doesn't make sense to me, because if it's wielded that way it's inherently polarizing.
Humans are so complicated.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#98The problem with this type of the thinking is the same thing you see when it comes to racism in general: "If we just stop mentioning it, it will go away", "programs to counter racism are racist", etc. Not talking about racism/sexism etc will not make it go away. Kids are very perceptive, they notice the apparent differences in acceptable behavior very early on; they are internalizing it subconsciously whether we brin…
I don't think that translates. Racism is hatred based on race. Hatred is something that needs to be addressed more directly because it won't go away on its own. Isn't the gender imbalance in tech something that is self-perpetuating the more visible it is? If it were closed, would it stay closed?
Racism is quite simply prejudice based on race, and prejudice does not mean hatred.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#99The problem with this type of the thinking is the same thing you see when it comes to racism in general: "If we just stop mentioning it, it will go away", "programs to counter racism are racist", etc. Not talking about racism/sexism etc will not make it go away. Kids are very perceptive, they notice the apparent differences in acceptable behavior very early on; they are internalizing it subconsciously whether we brin…
>Kids are very perceptive, they notice the apparent differences in acceptable behavior very early on
Yes and if young girls' early exposure to the industry consists largely of "Girl-centric CS activities" then they will immediately wonder why they need such special treatment. People do not want want to be segregated, even if it is, supposedly, for a good cause.
Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession
#100Hedy Lamarr (for those not familiar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr ) stands out as a woman who excelled in the "nerdy" aspects as well as the more "feminine" aspects. And she was involved long before it was treated as more mainstream, when her environment was more adherent to social norms than the world of 2013. How did she break the norms, and why don't we see more women following her example?
There were several women, along with Hedy Lamarr, that stood out, see my comment below. You only hear about her because she was also a movie star.