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To my daughter's high school programming teacher

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Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#521

Post by orclev »

wpietri wrote: post #518
orclev wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things. First, it's fine to try to stop discrimination in tech in the general sense, but it shouldn't be framed as a problem specifically with tech, doing so narrows the focus to the point at which it can't actually address the general problem only very specific limited instances. Secondly, you're confusing two different issues, the gender imbalance in tech, and gender based discrimination in tech. While it's tru…

You seem to have a lot of theories on how other people should be solving the problem. What specifically are you doing to solve the problem? To me this sounds like another version of the "you're doing it wrong" anonymous grumbling that the internet provides for pretty much anybody doing anything. I'm going to keep trying to fix tech the way I think tech should be fixed. Whether or not J. Random Commenter "accepts" my…

I already told you what I was doing, which is pretty much everything I can. Being that I'm not management, don't run a company, don't have anyone reporting to me, and am generally low man on the totem pole what I can actually do is fairly limited. Further limiting that is the fact that as I said, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the tech industry that's actually a fault of anything the tech industry is doing and as such changing things in the industry will have no impact at all on the problem. If I was someone in charge of education policy, or had any kind of pull with the media I might be in a position to do something, but I'm not. I also can't do anything about the war in Syria, the crazy politics over in the middle east in general, or Russia's stance on gay rights, and frankly I don't see where wringing my hands about it and making a bunch of pointless rants on the internet is going to do any good either.

You keep trying to fix what isn't broken while ignoring what is, just don't go harassing everyone who's trying to get things done, or get upset when everyone else thinks your nuts for tilting at windmills.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#522

Post by orclev »

Tycho wrote: post #442
nollidge wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the fuck is so "horrendously offensive" about the obvious truth that some classes of people have advantages that others don't?

THe words privilege and advantage aren't really interchangeable.

I knew there was something that was bothering me about the way they abuse the word privilege, I just couldn't put my finger on it, thanks for pointing that out.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#523

Post by weland »

ArtDev wrote: post #465
weland wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with the points you are making -- I certainly don't mean to derail this by a straw man argument, like it already happened above. But I think the importance of this particular incident is... well, somewhat overstated. Because: > So, you see, I was all too familiar with what my daughter was going through, but I was unprepared for the harassment to start in high school, in her programming class. Really?…

"We were a bunch of stupid fucks".. Guess what? In High School many of us were quite together and tried our best to have fun while avoiding people like you.

That's exactly what we thought, too. We only understood we were a bunch of stupid fucks when we got older. We're all stupid when we're teenagers :-).

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#524

Post by weland »

ArtDev wrote: post #467
IanDrake wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this. I was thinking the same thing. Most everyone has had this problem at one point in time. It seems to me that mom needs to teach her daughter to have a thicker skin...which is the EXACT same lesson I got from my parents.

When your kid feels harassed and bullied telling them to just "have thicker skin" is not going to cut it.

Of course not, but bringing the gender equality into discussion is pointless. Teenagers find any reason for bullying. I was bullied for having a lazy eye and enjoying baroque music back when everyone my was hooked up on Smooth Criminal. My cousin had her share of it because she played the drums (how unthinkable for a woman!)

My parents tried all they could to shelter me behind regulations, and even they -- a colonel and an elementary school teacher -- failed and eventually admitted I have to stand up for myself if everything else fails. I stood up to (and beaten the crap out of) bullies and even stood up to teachers if I had to.

The people who don't care about the rules are the people against which bullied and harassed teenagers have no one to count on other than themselves.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#525

Post by lambda »

asdasf wrote: post #512
lambda wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. Let's start from the beginning. The post you are replying to was a reply to the general tenor of a lot of posts, like yours, in this kind of thread. Posts which try to deny that there's a real problem, that the only reason that there aren't as many women in tech is that they have chosen not to. Anecdotes like the original article, as well as many others that have come before, demonstrate that there is a real prob…

>Anecdotes like the original article, as well as many others that have come before, demonstrate that there is a real problem. Sure. And that problem is bullying. It has absolutely nothing to do with women in technology. Saying "imaginary problem X is totally real because real problem Y is real" is not logical. >He's saying that we need to stop being defensive about it, stop trying to deny that problem, and start taki…

> Sure. And that problem is bullying. It has absolutely nothing to do with women in technology. Saying "imaginary problem X is totally real because real problem Y is real" is not logical.

The problem is not bullying alone, though that is part of the problem. Something can be both bullying and sexism at the same time. Bullies will frequently reach for the strongest ammunition they can get, whether it's racist, sexist, homophobic, or any of a number of other ways to hurt their victims.

Just because it's bullying doesn't mean that it's automatically not sexism as well.

> http://www.dailymotion.com/playlists/user/BrainwashingInNorw...

Really? A video series called "BranwashingInNorway" about how there are a few people in Norway who are too politically correct to admit that there are some sex-linked behavioral differences?

Did you have any particular evidence for your actual claim that that once it's no longer taboo women don't want to cross traditional gender lines any more that you wanted me to look at, or am I supposed to trawl through the whole four and a half hours?

How about an actual reliable citation in an academic paper, rather than someone who's just trying to demonstrate that there are a few Norwegian academics who are a little too PC for their own good.

> Why don't you need evidence to back up the claim that women are avoiding certain professions because of sexism?

I do. There is plenty of evidence. For instance, the original post that this whole thread is about, though you choose not to believe it, or somehow are trying to classify it as not sexism. But there's plenty more as well:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070503012914/http://headrush.ty...

This is a woman who was terrorized from showing up at tech conferences due to threats of rape and murder.

Or how about this, a compilation of several sexual harassment issues that explain why Valerie Aurora, a Linux Kernel developer, no longer goes to certain hacker cons:

https://adainitiative.org/2012/08/defcon-why-conference-hara...

But OK, maybe you'd rather have statistics than anecdotes. How about this study which shows that women are more likely to leave fields which are more heavily male dominated:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf

That, of course, doesn't address harassment directly, but the general sense of unease that being in a small minority can give you, which can drive you out of the field.

I'm not claiming that the entire gender disparity in tech is due to harassment, or a poisonous atmosphere, or anything of the sort. What I am claiming is that it happens, it does drive some people out, and it's a bad thing. You seem intent on denying that there's any problem whatsoever.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#526

Post by nollidge »

orclev wrote: post #522
Tycho wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THe words privilege and advantage aren't really interchangeable.

I knew there was something that was bothering me about the way they abuse the word privilege, I just couldn't put my finger on it, thanks for pointing that out.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege

> 1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most

Regardless, even if I and others called it "cronut", that doesn't invalidate the concept. So yours and Tycho's argument-from-terminology is just a distraction, and fails to even address the substance of my complaint.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#527

Post by orclev »

nollidge wrote: post #526
orclev wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew there was something that was bothering me about the way they abuse the word privilege, I just couldn't put my finger on it, thanks for pointing that out.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege > 1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most Regardless, even if I and others called it "cronut", that doesn't invalidate the concept. So yours and Tycho's argument-from-terminology is just a distraction, and fails to even address the substance of my complaint.

The fundamental difference is that a privilege is something given while an advantage can be something inherent. Privilege isn't something you're born with, it's something someone else has given you (and there's a strong implication of it being earned rather than simply handed out). Language is important, it does no one any good to try to subvert a word to a new and contradictory use because it paints your argument in a better light because of its existing connotations which do not apply.

Regardless of all that I wasn't actually attempting to address your argument at all and my comment wasn't aimed at you. I was simply stating that it annoys me the way privilege has been subverted from its actual meaning by a minority with a particular political motivation. Similarly I'm also annoyed with the way the term organic has been subverted to mean food grown without pesticide even though the actual meaning of the word has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#528

Post by Dylan16807 »

kaitai wrote: post #375
Dylan16807 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>is just funny Why is it that people misreading comments to call them out almost always come off as bigger asses than the people they're replying to?

The post I was responding to did refer to the sandwich comment as a "joke" and jokes are generally defined to be "funny." I would not consider the sandwich comment a joke, myself, since it doesn't fulfill the criteria I have for a joke, but apparently the poster I was responding to does consider it a joke (even if not one he likes, per se). Thus to the poster it does fulfill the criteria for a joke, whether good or n…

The poster characterized it as a joke, but did not say that that excused it. Your reading of the post as defending every aspect of the situation is what I object to.

And unfunny, bad-taste jokes are still jokes. I can talk about the KKK member's standup routine and call his words jokes without saying that I found them funny.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#529

Post by hacker789 »

rthomas6 wrote: post #450
hacker789 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

ALL of your comments are about men's rights. I think I should make some writeup for responses to MRAs, similar to how you have done for responses to feminist sentiments, because I think I understand the worldview and bought into it myself for a long time. Of course the response might not be perfect this time around, but I can perfect it incrementally. The first thing that is crucial to understand is that feminism its…

Overall, I don't disagree with much of what you said.

> ALL of your comments are about men's rights.

Yes, most of my comments are about gender issues. And interestingly, despite the vast majority of comments in any given thread disagreeing with my own, my median comment score when discussing those issues is around 10 to 20.

Clearly, there are quite a few people here who don't feel comfortable speaking out, and for good reason! They don't want to be bullied for weeks, having their names permanently dragged through the mud: http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/

I don't want like-minded visitors to this site feeling like they're not welcome to speak their mind.

> [T]he caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism.

Let's ignore the social justice bullies on Tumblr. The top (western) feminist websites are probably Jezebel, Feministe, and Geek Feminism. All three of those are notoriously bigoted against men. Yes, those three websites lack the "I want to watch men burn to death" comments, but that's not saying much.

Every time I hear someone claim that real feminists aren't like that, I must ask: Where are the real feminists?

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#530

Post by [deleted] »

hacker789 wrote: post #529
rthomas6 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ALL of your comments are about men's rights. I think I should make some writeup for responses to MRAs, similar to how you have done for responses to feminist sentiments, because I think I understand the worldview and bought into it myself for a long time. Of course the response might not be perfect this time around, but I can perfect it incrementally. The first thing that is crucial to understand is that feminism its…

Overall, I don't disagree with much of what you said. > ALL of your comments are about men's rights. Yes, most of my comments are about gender issues. And interestingly, despite the vast majority of comments in any given thread disagreeing with my own, my median comment score when discussing those issues is around 10 to 20. Clearly, there are quite a few people here who don't feel comfortable speaking out, and for go…

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