To my daughter's high school programming teacher • Hacker News Board

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#391

Post by henderson101 » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:38 PM UTC

jholman wrote: post #234

philwelch wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, Dancing with the Stars is one of the highest rated shows on TV; the fact that it has a 2/3 women audience indicates that very many women will make the time to watch it. Second, setting aside households with two TV's, only one spouse can enjoy passive entertainment at a time. Presumably while we watch football, women can do something fascinating and productive. Third, political correctness is a phenomenon of wh…

To the first, IF as you say it's 2/3 women, and IF as one short Google search suggested to me it has around 13M viewers, and IF we agree that those are all in the US and the US has around, what, 100M adult women?... then that's 8% of those adult women watching it. If those 13M include people outside the US, then it's lower than 8%. Apparently 92% of women do not watch DWTS. In response to the second, I don't understa…

I don't want to defend a sexist comment, but I think the point the opposing comment was making was that of the viewership of DWTS, 2/3 are women - so, 2/3 of 13M, not that 2/3 of the US population watch DWTS. I think that thread of your comment is looking for a fight where one probably doesn't exist. It's also not sexist to identify a specific TV show with a female demographic.

Second point was pretty easy to understand - if a household has 2 adults and 1 TV, only one Adult at a time can watch their preferred TV shows. If there is a second TV, possibly more, the Adults stand a fair chance that they will be able to watch their shows.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#392

Post by niuzeta » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:42 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #41

bangbang wrote: post #9

I cringe reading this. Since when it is alright to tell teachers how to do their job in bullet pointed letters? * Be an adult and talk about any issues, complements or concerns during the class. * Talk with them in person or on the phone. * If you wish, post to your blog after the issues have been resolved. To put a global context on the situation should be supported with evidence as it pertains to life as a women in…

One time in college, I went to a busy ice cream restaurant with some friends of mine (Fenton's in Emeryville). After entering, we saw there was just one single open table, so we went and put our jackets down on it and then got into line. After getting our ice cream we went back to the table only to find our jackets gone and some fat people sitting there, eating ice cream with their fat kids. When I asked where our ja…

funny, you're mad because he broke your untold rule on method of reservation, on basis of his untold rule on method of reservation? And why is this particular anecdote constructive to the discussion, in any way?

It sounds to me that the kind man even let the security personnel know of a possibly lost and found articles of your belongings. I'm not going to bat you further on blatant bullying on the man's physiques, as many other have pointed it already.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#393

Post by orclev » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #353

The entitled and largely unconscious male privilege in most of these HN comments is pretty hard to stomach against the large and steadily-accumulating picture of just how very different this industry presents itself to men and to women. Just because you don't directly experience or see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you haven't been (consciously) chauvinistic to a woman doesn't mean women don't experi…

This is a high school class, not the tech industry. You can't blame the tech industry when a bunch of highschoolers act like idiots just because the class they did it in happened to be a programming class. If they had done the same thing in a Algebra class would you be writing a rant about how we need to fix the rampant misogyny in math?

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#394

Post by makomk » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #262

derleth wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullying is violence, and I wonder how you know there was no rape.

You're right, i completely discounted the possibility of female-female rape. I'm still pretty confident, but I take back the definitely. And I was using violence to mean physical injury, sorry if you were confused. I think it shouldn't be an unrealistic goal to have high schools where no one is raped or physically assaulted, I'm very confident i was at one, and I think that people who consider that so outlandish a su…

Well, since almost everyone else completely discounts the possibility of female-female rape - probably including the teachers at your school - I wouldn't be so confident. After all, how would you know?

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#395

Post by VLM » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #358

VLM wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the most hilarious thing about the HN comments was the 100% sexism oriented response WRT general HN culture, and nothing about hetronormativity or whatever its called, I currently work with a great tech, who happens to be female, and she also happens to have a wife, and I've worked with other women with the same family life as that in the past, so I was LOL the whole way about the HN "belief system" that ap…

Wow, you could be very right. I grew up and retired to SW Missouri (Joplin), which is actually part of the cultural South, although with plenty of Midwestern and Western influences since they're so very close. At least in my time way back when such degradation of women (not at all to be confused with the "mating game" or whatever you want to call it) was just not tolerated, including by the sub-group social leaders I…

Your comment about threatening was interesting, and I had not considered it. For example, some guys are pretty tough on tall women although most don't care, and from a lifetime of locker room observation, those with the worst attitude toward the tall ladies statistically tend to be correspondingly unusually short in one particular physical attribute.

Given that, I would not be entirely surprised if the root cause of some anti-woman brogrammer behavior could be statistically highly correlated with one anatomical part being unusually small. Aka if the girls are going to laugh at him anyway, may as well pre-emptively strike against them first, not much to lose. Although why this behavior is seen more on the coasts than the midwest and the other civilized areas, is still unclear under this theory. We may simply grow 'em larger here thus less root cause for the anti-social behavior. I do not have enough observational data, and frankly I've gathered it all inadvertently rather than intentionally. A suitably geo-located chatroulette image analysis program might help. Although a theory that seems to "explain it all" is highly appealing, it none the less may or may not be proven out by actual statistical research. I would assume some sociologist with a ruler could probably figure it out for us, along with a questionnaire about brogrammers opinions about their physical self image (in other words they may not actually be shrunken mutants, but inaccurately think they are...). I don't think population migration necessarily disproves this theory; consider if hormone contamination in the water causes shrinkage or perhaps some other environmental toxins; the coasts certainly have plenty of environmental toxins compared to other areas.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#396

Post by asdasf » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

lsiebert wrote: post #275

byroot wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with your comment, one thing though > a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world. It's a bit far fetched to call a high school level programing introduction class audience the "programming world". Given the amount of people that, even in totally CS oriented engineering school, give up, or aim at a management career after they discover what CS really is, I'm confident to guess that no…

The bullying took a sexist form. I don't care why, no female should ever be told they need to go to the kitchen and make sandwiches for the guys in a programming class. That's behavior that should be stopped, or preferably never happen. The expectation should have been set that it will not happen, that the cool programmers don't discriminate and are respectful of each other as individuals.

Do you know what it was like for the only guy in home ec? It is not a case of sexism, it has nothing to do with programmers (likely none of the students would identify with programmers at all). It is just normal bullying. The same kind that teenagers who are in a minority of some kind deal with all the time. Yes, it needs to be addressed. But pretending it is some other problem isn't going to help it be addressed.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#397

Post by FatGuyInACoat » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #258

throwaway9848 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are really inconsiderate. And way to be a bully and pick on their weight because you didn't get your way.

Oh fuck yourself. I'm not saying what I did was right or defensible -- in fact in the comment you're replying to I said that I agreed that I was wrong. And in a reply to a sibling comment I apologized for thoughtlessly slamming obese people. I wrote about a time I was a jerk and put my name next to it. You ran to your throwaway account so you could show that you're effectively illiterate.

This post REALLY isn't going like you thought it would, is it?

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#398

Post by asdasf » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

lotsofcows wrote: post #343

madaxe wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... hello wilful misinterpreter? You don't fix a gas leak by buying a new sofa. I'm just saying that the thing being posed as an issue isn't the actual issue.

Your comment boils down to, "It was this way for me. Life's tough. Suck it up." How can a situation where a child enters a classroom full of enthusiasm and leaves a year (term?) later depressed not be an "actual issue"?

Your deliberate misrepresentation of the posts you are replying to is simply dishonest. There is no way for a constructive conversation to come out of that.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#399

Post by npsimons » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

hacker789 wrote: post #383

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #353

The entitled and largely unconscious male privilege in most of these HN comments is pretty hard to stomach against the large and steadily-accumulating picture of just how very different this industry presents itself to men and to women. Just because you don't directly experience or see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you haven't been (consciously) chauvinistic to a woman doesn't mean women don't experi…

We must protect the fairer sex at all costs. This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop. Women in the western world have always been among the safest, most privileged people on Earth. This entire thread, in fact, has been a shining example of female privilege. No one cares that women soundly outnumber men in university admission, and university graduation, and even high…

We must protect the fairer sex at all costs.

Where, exactly, did you find this quote? Because I can't find it in the OP, or the post you are replying to. I'd hate to think you might have pulled a strawman so blatantly out of thin air . . .

Oh, and thanks for demonstrating exactly the points the GP was trying to make.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#400

Post by nopal » Tue, Sep 10, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

I really wish the mother would have contacted the teacher, even if her daughter had decided "to plow through."

I'd like to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't knowingly let a student endure a semester of harassment. He probably didn't see or recognize the issue.

Open communication from the mother could have helped the teacher recognize the problem and deal with it.