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Girls and Software

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Re: Girls and Software

#171

Post by arrrg »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #162
arrrg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone was suggesting that. Many hackers I know do have other hobbies besides hacking and they devote lots of time to those hobbies. Beer brewing, coffee making, writing poetry, music, languages, … What if one of those hobbies is dressing fashionably? Or makeup? Or whatever? Beyond a certain point activities are zero sum but do you seriously suggest that to be a proper hacker you have no time at all for…

When you are younger the scarcity is money, not time. When I was younger I would have liked to dress fashionably or go out and do more sociable activities , but it was either that or buy computer parts and software etc. I couldn't have afforded both. By the time you get a job that lets you afford both you don't necessarily want to learn fashion from scratch.

That seems mostly like a class issue (which is also pretty awful, no doubt, though not something everyone faces). Also: As I said, I know hackers tend to have hobbies. And not cheap ones.

Also, computers have dropped massively in price during the last twenty years. I don’t think becoming a hacker was ever super-expensive compared to many other activities, at least not during the last two decades, but now it’s quite affordable. Always depending on what you want to do, but – just as a point of comparison – I think being serious about PC gaming would likely be much more costly (well, I guess equally as costly if you are really into game development or something of that nature).

Luckily computing has never been as affordable and accessible as today.

Re: Girls and Software

#172

Post by ucarion »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #42

> Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls only. When my son asked why he couldn't join, it was explained to him that girls need special help to become interested in technology, and that if there are boys around, the girls will be too scared to try. And that's why we can't use sexism to fight sexism (or mistakenly enforce the same composition of the general population on self-selected subsets).

I disagree. As a high schooler, I know many intelligent and creative young women who don't want to do robotics or programming because of the people in those fields.

High school boys in tech are much more likely to be misogynistic and socially inept than other high schoolers are. They make girls uncomfortable (they make me uncomfortable too, and I'm not event the subject of their creepiness), and this discourages girls from trying to program or build things.

There are women who can handle this quite well (the author of the piece is an example), but there are also many women who don't deal with this so easily. Those who can deal with the male-dominated environment will always be free to join mixed-gender events and groups, but girls' robotics classes target those who could gain a lot from having friends of the same gender who share similar interests.

Women aren't self-selecting themselves into tech, but there's no reason they couldn't. Women-in-tech events aren't fighting sexism with sexism, they're providing counterexamples to the misconception that programming is only for men.

Re: Girls and Software

#173

Post by rdtsc »

simias wrote: post #56
superuser2 wrote: post #12

>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. The largest enabling step for me was when I got my own laptop which I was free to break (software-wise) and free to take into my room so I could focus away from the distracting noises of the kitchen/living room. Much of even…

I don't agree. Having unlimited access to technological resources is great, I don't think anybody is denying that. But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... I really don't think it's responsible to let a 9-12 yo alone on the net in their room. Enabling them to access the net easily while still supervising what they do, giving…

Technological access used to mean just that technological access not chat access to potential predators.

I had a Z80 based ZX Spectrum (Sinclair) clone growing up. I had books on Z80 assembly, BASIC, tapes full of compilers (forth, C and pascal) but also tons of games.

The worst I could do in my room was catch the house on fire ;-) but anyway, does it makes sense to have a laptop today and be cut-off from the internet? Is it realistic? I don't know. I would certainly be "going out of your way" from the default setup most people assume today.

Re: Girls and Software

#174

Post by arrrg »

HedgeMage wrote: post #123
timr wrote: post #14

I'm torn. I think she makes some really good points -- particularly about discouraging young girls and the futility of shoving adult humans into foreign social situations -- but I also think she might be rather narrowly defining the personality type of a "hacker", and dismissing behaviors that she doesn't find valuable (in her words: "ephemera -- popularity, beauty and fitting in" ). Maybe it's possible that there ar…

> it makes me think: this might be a problem. Is it harder to be a hacker if you > also have an interest in social media and graphic design and popularity and > friendships? Are we defining "hacker" to include only people with bad social > skills and no interest outside of technology? I hope not. I never said any such thing. I didn't say "you are pretty, what are you doing here?". I said: >> you're not a programmer,…

Which feminist told you to dress or look a certain way? No doubt, there are feminists in the margins who think that way, but the vast majority of feminists I’ve ever met or talked to would be absolutely abhorred and disgusted by someone telling you how to dress or look. That’s certainly what I think. Gender policing is disgusting.

I’ve real trouble integrating what you are saying with what I’ve heard feminists say about the issues you are talking about.

Re: Girls and Software

#175

Post by Crito »

herokusaki wrote: post #163
Crito wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that even with parents doing their best to keep kids off computers, kids will find a way to stay on computers if it is their passion. Probably about half the time as a 10-16 year old (after 16, my parents stopped caring about what I did or where I went at all) I was banned from computer use for various reasons. That didn't stop me though, I'd go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 2am, then use it until school. Was fo…

I find it hard to understand those rules. What country did you grow up in?

Rural America. Conservative religious family.

As far as that sort of situation goes, my particular situation was not even particularly extreme. At least they did not make an attempt to censor what books I could read.

Re: Girls and Software

#176

Post by herokusaki »

dev1n wrote: post #67

Growing up watching shows like "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius" definitely shaped me as a child into the tech freak I am today. Girls getting barbies thrown at them when they are 12 does not help put girls into the tech sector. We need television shows like "Diane's Laboratory" or "Jennifer Neutron Girl Genius" to get girls interested in tech. Hit 'em when they're young.

> Girls getting barbies thrown at them when they are 12

As I understand it, Goldie Blox was founded precisely to provide an alternative to that. They already have a product out. I wonder how well they'll do.

Re: Girls and Software

#177

Post by VonGuard »

gruseom wrote: post #58
VonGuard wrote: post #50

themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, the…

How do you get kids modding Minecraft? I suggested this a little while ago for a kid in my brother-in-law's Grade 8 class, but then regretted it because the tools for doing it seemed inaccessible to beginners.

You don't. It's Java. It's like a kid asking you to build a car engine from scratch day one. We kindly point them to our Scratch class as a way to learn how to program.

Re: Girls and Software

#178

Post by VonGuard »

chewxy wrote: post #137
VonGuard wrote: post #50

themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, the…

What are the ages? I think a lot of the problem stems when the girls grow up to adolescents. That's when all the negative societal pressures start to set in. How would you keep this up through their teenage years?

Absolutely right. We are 8-14 year olds, and the pre-teens are the most excited.

Re: Girls and Software

#179

Post by djent »

ucarion wrote: post #172
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #42

> Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls only. When my son asked why he couldn't join, it was explained to him that girls need special help to become interested in technology, and that if there are boys around, the girls will be too scared to try. And that's why we can't use sexism to fight sexism (or mistakenly enforce the same composition of the general population on self-selected subsets).

I disagree. As a high schooler, I know many intelligent and creative young women who don't want to do robotics or programming because of the people in those fields. High school boys in tech are much more likely to be misogynistic and socially inept than other high schoolers are. They make girls uncomfortable (they make me uncomfortable too, and I'm not event the subject of their creepiness), and this discourages girl…

High school boys in tech are much more likely to be misogynistic and socially inept than other high schoolers are.

No

Re: Girls and Software

#180

Post by jiggy2011 »

arrrg wrote: post #171
jiggy2011 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are younger the scarcity is money, not time. When I was younger I would have liked to dress fashionably or go out and do more sociable activities , but it was either that or buy computer parts and software etc. I couldn't have afforded both. By the time you get a job that lets you afford both you don't necessarily want to learn fashion from scratch.

That seems mostly like a class issue (which is also pretty awful, no doubt, though not something everyone faces). Also: As I said, I know hackers tend to have hobbies. And not cheap ones. Also, computers have dropped massively in price during the last twenty years. I don’t think becoming a hacker was ever super-expensive compared to many other activities, at least not during the last two decades, but now it’s quite a…

When I was learning PC gaming and interest in programming tended to go hand in hand, people wanted to program because they wanted to build games or mod games. Though I guess now it might be social media, iphone apps or something.

As a teenager I didn't exactly grow up poor but my income was restricted to what I could earn by working around my studies, so at most 12 hours a week at minimum wage which for a teenager was something like £3 an hour.

At that sort of income doing things like renting servers , iphone SDKs, decent computers etc start to look more expensive.

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