Who cares.
It's a measure of our progress.
Poll: Male or female?
31–40 of 106 posts
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that if the data can't be applied, then we're satisfying only trivial curiosities. Like if I asked about your gender - who cares? But this data can be applied. Here we're testing the hypothesis of the above-linked essay. It's a poor test, though I think that HN users are better behaved in voluntary online polls. More importantly, it lets us know how our community stacks up. Genetically-encoded risk-taking asi…
>> "many of us would like to see equal proportions in such a poll" Good luck with adjusting the internal structure of female brains.
I said that I would recommend this site, not that I would attempt genetic modification. The linked article is descriptive, not normative. If women might, due to genetic differences, be missing out on a lot of great information because of a 'male' or risky (startups?) or socially transient (discussions only last one day?) climate, then we should try to remedy this.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the time I voted, it was 96.6% male (143/148). I find it hard to believe that our community (hackers) is 96.6 % male. I don't find it hard to believe that hacker news readership is 96.6% male. Does hacker news "attract" a more male readership? Or is the population already this skewed?
Do women hang out in online hacker communities? Generally, no, and here's why: http://xkcd.com/322/
While that obviously happens, I personally very much doubt that explains the difference. Evolutionary rationales are far more compelling to me. Even childhood conditioning/environment is more compelling.
To the extent it is true, or at least that the behavior exaggerated in that comic is true, I'm always curious what we're supposed to take from it. Being a guy, I don't have a knee-jerk hatred of myself just because I relate to sex in a different way from women. I don't find myself morally repugnant because I can be attracted to women before I've found a deep, meaningful connection with them. I don't hate myself because a woman showing up on IRC suddenly becomes powerfully interesting to me.
Guys aren't evil. They're different from women. If you don't know this, try reversing the situation. Imagine if a guy showed up in an IRC peopled entirely by girls, and they started paying all kinds of attention to him, and making sexual comments about him. Would he be traumatized? Aside from the usual contrarians, most honest guys would say no. In fact, most guys would LOVE it. This would hold even if they showed up in a typically "female" domain, such as a class on midwifery or home economics.
Society feels that it needs to enforce the notion that the way men relate to sex is wrong and the way women relate to it is right. I think the arguments for that are reasonable, but I personally opt out.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#34Who cares.
We should care. We like to believe that all our differences do not make a difference, but fortunately and unfortunately they do. For example if YC funds more startups with women you will not see the impact in the next 2 years. But 10 years from now those veterans would have encouraged several younger women to get into technical fields. Everyone will benefit from that. I have had the chance to meet and work with a cou…
Ah, but should YC make a concerted effort to fund startups with women because 'everyone will benefit eventually'? That's hardly fair.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#35There is some basic info of the breakdown of users including gender on Alexa, though it only provides info for users with their plugin: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com
It will be interesting to see how that data compares to the poll results.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the time I voted, it was 96.6% male (143/148). I find it hard to believe that our community (hackers) is 96.6 % male. I don't find it hard to believe that hacker news readership is 96.6% male. Does hacker news "attract" a more male readership? Or is the population already this skewed?
Do women hang out in online hacker communities? Generally, no, and here's why: http://xkcd.com/322/
[deleted]
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do women hang out in online hacker communities? Generally, no, and here's why: http://xkcd.com/322/
While that obviously happens, I personally very much doubt that explains the difference. Evolutionary rationales are far more compelling to me. Even childhood conditioning/environment is more compelling. To the extent it is true, or at least that the behavior exaggerated in that comic is true, I'm always curious what we're supposed to take from it. Being a guy, I don't have a knee-jerk hatred of myself just because I…
Sure, ellyagg, there are other reasons. And to be honest any female with half a brain doesn't go into a tech community proclaiming her gender. But there are definitely attitudes and comments that you get when people know you're female that don't really encourage you to stick around and become a member of the community.
Assuming a woman overcomes whatever other social/educational/evolutionary factors enough to start participating in the first place, it really doesn't help the balance that she's driven off due to the behaviour of apes with keyboards.
Of course, as I allude, most of us have learnt to let the gender thing stay under wraps and, when it does come out, are used to the general comments caused by JGGIFT. But there are plenty who get really upset by such things and won't hang around.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#38Female here, just voted.
I just wanted to say I love Hacker News.
I'm an introvert and a nerd before I am a female, so I am of course drawn to Hacker News because it's a great place to find other over-sensitive folks who take themselves, their questions, and other peoples' questions very seriously. As others point out again and again, the quality of discourse here is just really high.
Secondarily, but still present, I like Hacker News because relative to other community sites it's very female-friendly. HN is mostly based on ideas, not status/gender/age.
I do wince and get bummed out whenever I read certain comments here (I've pretty much learned to just not even click threads about the ideal age to get married, what's more important relationships or programming, etc) but even when things make me sad, they're at least not crudely written. Basically HN keeps it pretty civil.
Anyway, you folks are great, HN is great, and I think more females will gravitate here for a variety of reasons, most having nothing to do with gender.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "many of us would like to see equal proportions in such a poll" Good luck with adjusting the internal structure of female brains.
I said that I would recommend this site, not that I would attempt genetic modification. The linked article is descriptive, not normative. If women might, due to genetic differences, be missing out on a lot of great information because of a 'male' or risky (startups?) or socially transient (discussions only last one day?) climate, then we should try to remedy this.
Sure, I'd definitely recommend it to women who are into hacking, but the number of women who are into hacking is low. Success rate is probably going to be similar to women recommending a site about fashion to male friends.
I agree with making sure people are aware what they can do, what is possible etc, but trying to make everything a 50/50 split between sexes is an unachievable waste of time IMHO. Lets embrace and celebrate the differences between the sexes rather than pretend they don't exist.
Re: Poll: Male or female?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting internet polls are not reliably accurate? They are definitely not reliably accurate as representations of the realities they purport to represent.
They are definitely not reliably accurate as representations of the realities they purport to represent. Yet certain parts of the news media treat them like proper statistical polls.
Yet certain parts of the news media treat them like proper statistical polls.
Your statement is correct, and that is a regrettable fact about errors among some news media workers. The local TV station I watch most for TV news usually posts polls without any warning, but is pretty good about announcing that their results are "unscientific" after the polls close.