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Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

hackerschool.com

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Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#31

Post by jerrya »

achompas wrote: post #25
jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible. Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things. Fact: as a result, wom…

Whoa.

There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.

That I do not agree with any form of sexism makes me egalitarian, not misogynistic. You are way out of line, bub.

And while I do not know Danilo Campos or whether he/she is eager to grasp the role you assign, the notion there is some person whose role it is to police the discussions at Hacker News to whack people with sticks that disagree with him is well, downright creepy.

Not a way to run a discussion forum if one is interested in dialogue, and conversation.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#32

Post by achompas »

jerrya wrote: post #31
achompas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible. Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things. Fact: as a result, wom…

Whoa. There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic. That I do not agree with any form of sexism makes me egalitarian, not misogynistic. You are way out of line, bub. And while I do not know Danilo Campos or whether he/she is e…

There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.

That's a very uncharitable reading of my comment. I made no statement about you aside from the lack of nuance in your argument (the whole zomg part). I think you took issue with this:

he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech

which was simply a comment on how Danilo provides people with a reality check re: the prevalence of misogyny in tech.

I raised that point b/c people on Twitter were characterizing your remarks as representative of HN as a whole, when in practice I've found that we debate this issue carefully (again, as opposed to your blanket statement calling them sexist).

I went out of my way to avoid characterizing you as misogynistic. I apologize if my comment may have implied you're misogynistic (I don't know you, though, so why would I throw that claim around?) and would appreciate it if you instead responded to my actual claims (HSchool's scholarship is an attempt to combat the presence of sexism in our industry).

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#33

Post by dschobel »

jerrya wrote: post #31
achompas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible. Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things. Fact: as a result, wom…

Whoa. There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic. That I do not agree with any form of sexism makes me egalitarian, not misogynistic. You are way out of line, bub. And while I do not know Danilo Campos or whether he/she is e…

"Not a way to run a discussion forum if one is interested in dialogue, and conversation."

and yet you bragged about flagging the submission...

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#34

Post by jacalata »

akarpenko wrote: post #19
nosefrog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise…

The right solution would be to get women interested in technology from an early age, not by raising the numbers artificially by creating a sexist scholarship.

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today."

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#35

Post by BSousa »

jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

You got a lot of flack from others from this comment. To be honest, I agree with you.

I always opposed women only events, and I think these grants are also horrible.

Maybe it is an USA problem, but I worked in various industries (games, banking, insurance, B2B, B2C) all over Europe and never saw much discrimination against women (not saying didn't happen). Sure the ratios are skewed, but everywhere I worked, I worked with women, some in software development, some artists, some managers.

People want to have reasons why women are outnumbered in CS, but I truly believe that many women don't like CS (whether by biological or social pressures). When I was in university, my course (math and computer science) had a 50:50 ratio. By the last year, I say more than half switched to more 'social' courses. None I interacted with stated they were discriminated, most just said they didn't want to spend so much time in front of a computer and preferred more 'social' work. Heck, in the last year of highschool here you have to decide what uni/course you apply, except two girls from many I was friends with wanted to get a CS degree, opposed to many of the guys.

Another point. My wife loves math and chemistry and puzzle solving. She sees me programming and more than once asked me to teach her. I'm more than happy to do it, but as soon as she has to spend a lot of time in front of a computer she gives up. She's smart (probably more than me) but she just doesn't want to do such a solitary activity.

It can be social pressures since they are children to focus on more girly things, and I believe we should focus on that, but focusing the problem on adult women with these kind on initiatives is wrong. By the same token, I'm pretty sure Portuguese white males are underrepresented in Hacker School. Should I get a grant as well? What about Jamaican programmers?

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#36

Post by jacalata »

mel9 wrote: post #29

hey this hackerschool looks pretty cool. I see that their is a checkbox for "I am a woman" though. I am a high school-er that goes to vocational school for software engineering. I also happen to be a girl. I'm not so sure about putting a checkbox of "I'm a woman". It might turn that group away and I don't even like the idea of it too much. I'd rather have people see me more than just a gender.

Would it make you more comfortable to have it just be a radio button for M|F?* Did you read through the FAQ or play with the checkbox enough to realise that they ask this because they have scholarships that are only available to women? Or are you uncomfortable with the concept of affirmative action in general?

(Possible fix: have a checkbox 'I am eligible for a scholarship and would like to apply for one'. Automatically reject from the school anyone who turns out to have checked this without being eligible.)

*ignoring any possible issues with presenting gender as binary there

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#38

Post by pg »

jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

That was an abuse of flagging. It's fine (though boring after a while) to complain about links to sites whose policies you disagree with, but not to flag them as offtopic.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#40

Post by uladzislau »

pg wrote: post #38
jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

That was an abuse of flagging. It's fine (though boring after a while) to complain about links to sites whose policies you disagree with, but not to flag them as offtopic.

Is this topic a honeypot for flagging? I accidentally flagged this and oops, my flagging link on all stories is gone.
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