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Girls Who Code

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Re: Girls Who Code

#271

Post by luigi »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99
crassus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Party line" is an interesting choice of words. There's definitely some unhealthy groupthink going on that's gaining in power. It's never been easier to have something said taken out of context and have your reputation dragged through the mud by people who are professional social justice warriors and not much else (I doubt Nitasha Tiku could program "hello world") Maybe it's due to the rise of twitter and the ease of…

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

It's telling that we only know him as "the guy from PlayHaven" while we all know Adria Richards by name. In that picture Adria took at PyCon, I'm not even sure which guy got fired.

Okay, so the PlayHaven guy got fired. Adria had death threats made against her, was the subject of a beheading picture, had her home address and phone number publicized, her employer was DDOSed, and she was ultimately fired, like the PlayHaven guy.

That's misogyny in action. That's what needs to end.

On one side, it's a few people using their real names and identities to be harshly and specifically critical on Twitter. On the other side, it's an avalanche of anonymous death threats. I know which one bothers me more.

Re: Girls Who Code

#272

Post by pnathan »

chas wrote: post #240
ama729 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have some links to the studies you have read, I would be really interested to read them. Thank you

The last paper mentioned is likely one by Sapna Cheryan. She gives an overview of her work on stereotypes, identity, and computer science on her homepage[0] as well as links to relevant papers. [0] http://faculty.washington.edu/scheryan/research.htm

Yup, Cheryan, Plaut, Davies, & Steele, 2009 is what I was referring to. Thanks for the link.

Re: Girls Who Code

#273

Post by azakai »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #268
azakai wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just going to throw this out here: only about 10% of nurses are male. Yet I rarely hear about the cultural problem of not having enough males in nursing, or how we can encourage more male nurses. Perhaps because you mostly read tech news sites, and not nursing news sites. This stuff (in both tech and nursing) rarely reaches the mainstream news sources, so people not involved in the industry generally are unawar…

Perhaps because you mostly read tech news sites, and not nursing news sites. This stuff (in both tech and nursing) rarely reaches the mainstream news sources, so people not involved in the industry generally are unaware of it. That's a good point. However, I was watching something on TV just yesterday about getting women into programming. My perception is that trying to get more women into programming is a much more…

One thing to realize here is that the industries are not symmetrical. There are billionaires and billion-dollar companies in the tech industry (as well as many many non-rich but still very well off engineers that can each donate money), but nothing like that in nursing or psychology or garbage collection or preschool education.

So the tech industry, if it want to, can pour large sums of money into its causes (as we see in the topic of this discussion, but also many others). And it can make sure the mainstream press notices them. Whereas even if the psychology community wants desperately to get more men to join its ranks, it just doesn't have the resources the tech industry has.

It also is not just money. The tech industry is the industry that makes websites, that builds twitter and facebook and all that. Initiatives in the tech industry have an inherent advantage over initiatives in other industries, which have to make the effort to find some tech person to build their online presence.

So it is not surprising to me at all that initiatives in the tech industry are more noticeable than from other industries. The tech industry is special in many ways.

Edit: An example of an industry with even more power and noticeability than tech is hollywood, which has both money and famous+popular people in it. That's why we hear about all the various initiatives this or that actor is up to.

Re: Girls Who Code

#274

Post by alexmat »

jfarmer wrote: post #265
001sky wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

women are more risk averse I think this is misleading. Men and women face different risks , and heterodox strategies are not indicative of very much. First, you need to be careful how you infer "risk taking" from "not taking the same bets", because the actual riks taken is a portfolio riks calculation which is blind. Second, you don't have any data to infer anyrthing about the quality of the risk taking they are in f…

You and your complexifyin' aren't welcome around here, friend! All that nuance just makes our arguments much harder to make. You'd best take it elsewhere.

I agree, "he talks like a fag and all his shit is retarded."

Re: Girls Who Code

#275

Post by jdunck »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99
crassus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Party line" is an interesting choice of words. There's definitely some unhealthy groupthink going on that's gaining in power. It's never been easier to have something said taken out of context and have your reputation dragged through the mud by people who are professional social justice warriors and not much else (I doubt Nitasha Tiku could program "hello world") Maybe it's due to the rise of twitter and the ease of…

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

That people are reading this subthread and finding common cause with this right here... Do you realize how ridiculous you are?

If you would like to know what racism is and why criticism of a dominant group on the basis of race isn't in, here's one take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M

But you'd have to listen to get it, and you'd definitely have to give up your bullshit self-serving circular "logic".

Re: Girls Who Code

#276

Post by newnewnew »

0x20 wrote: post #252
newnewnew wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men do better than women at the Math SAT[1]. The male/female ratio is especially high in the higher Math percentiles, where you would expect your best engineers to come from. The polite way to explain this is some kind of "expectations effect", which is possible, but females do dominate at all other aspects of education. We cannot rule out simple innate ability, combined with higher male interest in abstract things.…

http://www.lscp.net/persons/ramus/fr/GDP1/papers/spencer99.p... “Characterizing the test as insensitive to gender differences was enough to totally eliminate women’s underperformance in this experiment. Yet when the same test was characterized as sensitive to gender differences, women significantly underperformed in relation to equally qualified men.” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15298868.2012.68... http…

Some social scientists are skeptical of the validity of stereotype threat. John List, in a paper coauthored with Steven Levitt at the University of Chicago, was unable to reproduce it[1]. Some scholars suspect publication bias[2]. Also see another failure to reproduce by the Educational Testing Service[3].

[1] http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/10/john-list-on-virtual-none...

[2] http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/01/stereotype-threat-scienti...

[3] http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/11/high-stakes-stereotype-th...

Re: Girls Who Code

#277

Post by parennoob »

esperluette wrote: post #269
parennoob wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously saying that women without children at home having less free time is now somehow society's problem? You don't just "have less free time" automatically. It's probably because you choose to do more housework, which is exactly what the study says ("they spend about six hours more than men doing household work"). Don't want to do it? Cool, practise for a tournament all the time, don't do more housework,…

Uh, no. The OP was trying to imply that women are naturally worse at the competitions cited, and I pointed out that women in the age demographic that wins those competitions (usually men 20-50) have less free time than the men. And ... many women don't "want" to do more housework/chores, but feel they have to do it, because if their house is dirty or their kids don't have clean clothes/snacks for the soccer game, etc…

Uh, yes.

The OP was correct in saying that men are better (he didn't say anything about naturally) at the competitions cited.

And...many men don't want to do chess, coding, or Go competitions, but feel they have to do it, because it is often way of getting any recognition from society, which usually reserves it for actors and football players. Women often get a free pass on account of their looks -- people are naturally nice to even an average-looking woman. An average looking man gets squat. This social pressure = society's problem. Think about that the next time you see an ad that portrays the average dad as an incompetent schlub. For instance, this one -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iymBRSUfz9U

The average man will be treated much worse at a supermarket, a coffee shop, or on the bus, even if he is very very very polite. And if he is less than handsome or wealthy? He's "not really my type", or "ugh, what a creep".

If a girl chooses to dress as a man for a year, it is a fact that she will come out of that experience seeing how harder it is for men. (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/apr/01/highereducation...)

And please, I don't ever want to hear about how you (or your spouse) can't do well at chess or programming because you are busy putting out the trash and doing the dishes in your house. I face the same problems regarding housework, and I am still expected by traditional society, even in the US, to be the breadwinner for my family (which is one of the many reasons I will probably never marry).

Re: Girls Who Code

#278

Post by philwelch »

luigi wrote: post #271
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

It's telling that we only know him as "the guy from PlayHaven" while we all know Adria Richards by name. In that picture Adria took at PyCon, I'm not even sure which guy got fired. Okay, so the PlayHaven guy got fired. Adria had death threats made against her, was the subject of a beheading picture, had her home address and phone number publicized, her employer was DDOSed, and she was ultimately fired, like the PlayH…

I think both sides are assholes, and should collectively shut up and let calm, reasonable people handle these problems like adults.

Re: Girls Who Code

#279

Post by rokhayakebe »

ceol wrote: post #146
rokhayakebe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A women cannot be driven out of coding by anyone other than herself. This is not a social thing. This is not hard core research requiring millions to get started. Only a PC, Stack Overflow and an internet connection are required. Even now on HN I cannot tell who is a girl or guy by their username, let alone the gender of the person who wrote the code that populates the webpage I read.

> A women cannot be driven out of coding by anyone other than herself. What a disgustingly ignorant thing to say. The sheer obliviousness of your privilege in this regard is staggering. It's ridiculous to expect someone to put up with harassment and vitriol and, when they finally give up and leave — which is completely normal and something any normal person, including yourself , would do — say that it was all on them…

Ceol. I am Black. I am African. I live in Orange County (3% Black - At best). I am 32. I started to learn how to code at 28. I am still not comfortable walking in a room where everybody is White. I feel like a fraud sometimes, when I tell people I know how to code (in PHP).

None of the above stopped me from slinging that code for several hours today.

I understand what being a minority is, but quite frankly most of the time that shit is in our head. If you don't care, then no one will. Somebody having an advantage does not mean you have a disadvantage, this is not a zero sum game. I am writing code for a product for women (Hint: Alexander Wang, diane von furstenberg, Tory Burch, Marc Jacobs kinda stuff). Just because women knows these brands more than I (in general) does not mean I should sit back.

It's hard, I get it, but what other choice do we have but roll up our sleeves and make our own mark and tell them "You see, mine count too," instead of "Make it easy for me to get in."

But I'll admit, I am very naive, and that has cost me greatly.

At any rate, apologies.

Re: Girls Who Code

#280

Post by xs_kid »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #99
crassus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Party line" is an interesting choice of words. There's definitely some unhealthy groupthink going on that's gaining in power. It's never been easier to have something said taken out of context and have your reputation dragged through the mud by people who are professional social justice warriors and not much else (I doubt Nitasha Tiku could program "hello world") Maybe it's due to the rise of twitter and the ease of…

Shanley Kane and her circle and sympathizers are spearheading this. Many of them show up in every HN thread about charged topics. I fully expect defense of them to show up in reply. It is part of my core being to be respectful to everyone, to listen to all sides, to feel empathy; however, when I am presented with a popular group in my industry that does none of those things, I am not sure how to react. What's depress…

> several of her circle started Gittip accounts and they are cleaning house

459usd/week*52weeks/year = 23k/year - taxes = ~10k

They will be rich soon.

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