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On being a girl in computer science - a confession

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Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#181

Post by jimzvz »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #162
jimzvz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain to me where I made an assertion about how women should feel. I said that girls will wonder why they are being treated differently and I said that people do not like being segregated. What words am I putting in whose mouths? What type of argument?

Let's not devolve this discussion into a language-parsing exercise. Take your comment as a whole, its clear you are saying "this is how women will/should feel". I'm saying there is no reason to suppose how women will feel: they can tell us themselves if they feel this way.

No, I am saying that people don't like being segregated (not that they should not like, do not try to put a different spin on it) and as a person who has interacted with other people my whole life I do have a right to say that. Yes, women are people so I believe this includes women. Maybe there are people that like being singled out based on their gender in this context but I have definitely not met any.

>they can tell us themselves if they feel this way

Yes and they do. I am not sure if you realise this but this actually what the female author of the article says:

"I also have grave concerns regarding activities and events that are for “girls only”. These events instead enforce the stereotype, segregating girls and giving them (and everyone) a message that they are different. It is a band-aid attempt at a solution to a problem that starts at a much younger age, and seriously neglects those girls (and women) who don’t want to be segregated (many of whom never even come out to such events, and whose voices are sadly never heard). Children do not grow up into a segregated world, so why are we reinforcing that message? Why are we not just creating a variety of activities that may appeal to boys or girls or both? I can see taking issue with creating explicitly sexist activities, but there is nothing inherently sexist about having activities that may attract more of one gender than the other, especially when we make the available to everyone. "

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#182

Post by XorNot »

newnewnew wrote: post #160
LockeWatts wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference is that girls have an immediate re-enforcing explanation for that sense of being out of place: you don't belong because you're a woman How is this different from guys who go, "They're so ahead of me. I'm out of place, because they are all smarter than me"?

Beginning guys who find themselves in classrooms full of people that started programming in their teens do what they always do - suck it up or fail. Such is the life of a member of the majority.

It's perhaps also worth noting that sexism and discrimination are usually just as bad for members of the dominant class as they are for members of the discriminated.

Programs which would help more women be involved and included in CS will end up helping men who would find themselves in similar situations. Discrimination is harmful to just about everyone.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#183

Post by LockeWatts »

newnewnew wrote: post #160
LockeWatts wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference is that girls have an immediate re-enforcing explanation for that sense of being out of place: you don't belong because you're a woman How is this different from guys who go, "They're so ahead of me. I'm out of place, because they are all smarter than me"?

Beginning guys who find themselves in classrooms full of people that started programming in their teens do what they always do - suck it up or fail. Such is the life of a member of the majority.

Are you saying that that's a good thing? I'm not quite sure of the intent of this post, so I'm not sure with what tone to read it.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#184

Post by mpyne »

jlgreco wrote: post #131
duaneb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should watch Disney movies with your kid and discuss them. Ignorance won't stop anything.

Why call out Disney for such special treatment. Should he do similar with the Rambo series? Not watching Disney movies seems like a perfectly reasonable response to the content of Disney movies. There is no shortage of other things to watch.

Much like the discussion about sex/abstinence, there's really no way to avoid Disney (or violent media) completely as a parent. Even if you don't show it to your kid they'll see it at school or somewhere else.

So if you want your kid to get something specific out of a Disney movie other than the intended message, it's probably better to ensure they see it with you while you're there to explain it appropriately.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#185

Post by hackinthebochs »

jimzvz wrote: post #181
hackinthebochs wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not devolve this discussion into a language-parsing exercise. Take your comment as a whole, its clear you are saying "this is how women will/should feel". I'm saying there is no reason to suppose how women will feel: they can tell us themselves if they feel this way.

No, I am saying that people don't like being segregated (not that they should not like, do not try to put a different spin on it) and as a person who has interacted with other people my whole life I do have a right to say that. Yes, women are people so I believe this includes women. Maybe there are people that like being singled out based on their gender in this context but I have definitely not met any. > they can t…

> Maybe there are people that like being singled out based on their gender in this context but I have definitely not met any.

The fact that women participate in these events is an obvious counter-example.

And yes, the author is essentially making your point. But she is also speaking from a position of privilege, as someone who was never intimidated by "boy stuff" and who admittedly got along better with boys rather than girls. I'm not sure her point is representative of the target audience of these kinds of gatherings, so it should be weighed with that in mind. Also its interesting to note that her comment was not in the first person, as in "this is how I feel about these events". It seems like she's doing what you are doing, projecting her ideas about how these girls will/should feel onto them.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#186

Post by obstacle1 »

rayiner wrote: post #133
cletus wrote: post #102

I think these sorts of articles are asking the wrong question when they ask "why aren't there more women in CS?" or "how can we get more women in CS?" Instead the question should be (IMHO) "are there any barriers to entry for women in CS?" I suspect the opinion people have on this issue largely mirrors their view on affirmative action. Some believe in a meritocracy that is blind to race, age and gender. They believe…

> For me, I'm not sure how productive all this gender hand-wringing really is. It's potentially very productive. The culture of CS, "judgmental introversion" as you put it, is not anything intrinsic to CS. Indeed, software engineering is a profession that demands a high level of communication and cooperation. The "lone hacker" stereotype is in my opinion quite the opposite of the kind of people you want in software e…

Is there any evidence that the shifts you cite were actually caused by affirmative action? From your own source, a female accountant attributes the shift to a change in the content of accounting programs (from less to more personal interaction):

> "The analytical aspect of the accounting profession over the last 20 years has been more attractive to women," she says. "It's not, 'Crunch this number here,' or, 'Prepare this report there.' There's a lot more personal interaction."

Not affirmative action.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#187

Post by jimzvz »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #163
LockeWatts wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we argue instead that discriminating is wrong, and we shouldn't actively promote it.

Racism, sexism, etc are necessarily wrong. However, discrimination is not necessarily wrong. Whether its wrong depends on the context and the motivations. I submit that this is a valid form of "discrimination".

Sexism is discrimination based on sex. Please look up the definition of sexism. No, it does not depend on the motivation or context, everyone who discriminates believes that their motives justify it but they don't. Your sexism is no different from anyone else's.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#188

Post by obstacle1 »

rayiner wrote: post #171
LockeWatts wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So your dichotomy about "meritocracy" is short-sighted. There is nothing "meritocratic" about indulging male culture to keep a field male-dominated. Indeed, that's anti-meritocratic I don't see how a blind meritocracy is indulging male culture. Isn't the whole point of a meritocracy the idea that the only thing it cares about is performance?

What you have in CS now isn't "blind meritocracy." If the male culture is turning away qualified women, you don't have a meritocracy.

> If the male culture is turning away qualified women

Is there any evidence that this is happening?

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#189

Post by rachelbythebay »

astrieanna wrote: post #47

>I liked it because it was hard, and considered hard. >And I didn’t even notice that I was the only female in the >class— a lack of awareness that persisted well into >university. I took programming classes in high school, and assumed that the hugely skewed gender ratio was just my school being weird. It wasn't until people were surprised/impressed that I was planning to major in CS that I started googling, and disco…

I don't wear unisex t-shirts. They tend to "gap" and just hang all wrong on me. Makeup? Eh. It depends. More interested in coding than parties? Nope. I'd much rather be at a party, assuming party means "a group of friends having food and drinks, talking and laughing late into the night". People are far more interesting than these computers.

I don't like "because it's there" as a reason to do something. You expressed it as "it is hard and considered hard", but I think it's the same basic idea. I build things because I need the result to solve a problem of mine, or a problem for someone I care about.

Where does that leave me? I don't know. I hope these things wouldn't exclude me from a conversation you were having at a conference.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#190

Post by obstacle1 »

danilocampos wrote: post #108
cletus wrote: post #102

I think these sorts of articles are asking the wrong question when they ask "why aren't there more women in CS?" or "how can we get more women in CS?" Instead the question should be (IMHO) "are there any barriers to entry for women in CS?" I suspect the opinion people have on this issue largely mirrors their view on affirmative action. Some believe in a meritocracy that is blind to race, age and gender. They believe…

> For me, I'm not sure how productive all this gender hand-wringing really is. Demographic dramatically over-represented in government, corporate boards, startup founders, growth industries, etc unconcerned about status quo. And there's the problem.

So you choose to ignore the nuances of the poster's argument, instead criticizing it based on the fact that the author is (you think) part of an over-represented demographic? The points can't possibly be valid, since they were written by a middle-class white male?

Is your own bigotry bleeding through, or have I misread you?

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