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Girls and Software

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Re: Girls and Software

#411

Post by xerophtye »

nsxwolf wrote: post #366
xerophtye wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised you only mentioned violent videos and everyone seems to be going on and on about that. Aren't we forgetting porn? I thought parents were much more concerned about THAT rather than violent videos

You're not allowed to have anything but the most positive possible opinion of porn on HN, so that was possibly self-censorship on the OPs part.

Well not saying anything about porn itself but I believe we are in universal agreement to keep children away from porn.

Re: Girls and Software

#412

Post by alecdbrooks »

Crake wrote: post #387
alecdbrooks wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticizing how fictional women are dressed is not the same as criticizing how real-life women are dressed. When a man draws or designs a female character with "sexy" clothing, it's likely sexualizing that character for male viewers to ogle. When a woman decides to dress that way, it's personal expression. When I see feminist criticisms of how female characters are dressed, they're not criticizing three dimensional a…

>Criticizing how fictional women are dressed is not the same as criticizing how real-life women are dressed. Who do you think portrays them on tv and in movies? Fake women? Give me a break. >When a man draws or designs a female character with "sexy" clothing, it's likely sexualizing that character for male viewers to ogle. When a woman decides to dress that way, it's personal expression. I like how if a man does it,…

> Who do you think portrays them on tv and in movies? Fake women? Give me a break.

Oh, I had forgotten actresses write their own roles and pick their own wardrobes. And since most producers are women [0], most directors are women, most writers are women[1] and most people behind the scenes are women [2], I don't know what I was thinking. You're absolutely right: Men really have no influence on the process at all.

/sarcasm

>>When a man draws or designs a female character with "sexy" clothing, it's likely sexualizing that character for male viewers to ogle. When a woman decides to dress that way, it's personal expression.

>I like how if a man does it, it's sexist, but if a woman does it, it's "empowerment." I guess men aren't allowed to write empowered female characters. And yet, if they don't write them--that makes them misogynists, too.

I'm comparing a woman's personal choice to a man's choice of how women are portrayed. Men can dress as they wish. What they shouldn't do is objectify women.

[0]: http://www.screendaily.com/news/production/percentage-of-wom...

[1]: http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/tv-writing-remains-white-m...

[2]: http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/15/report-women-are-st...

Re: Girls and Software

#413

Post by SDGT »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #189
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…

One summer in my childhood, my parents decided to severely restrict my siblings and I's access to the internet for unspecified reasons. We were each allowed 30 minutes use of the family computer and its Internet connection, which was "locked down" by passwords on the BIOS and Windows 98 screensaver. The laptop I shared with my brother and sister was still connected to our home LAN (through one of those crazy Intel An…

Far more creative than I had to be, but also far more elegant.

As soon as I figured out the bios reset jumper existed on the mobo, it was game over. I would endure punishment to just go back and reset the bios password again in the middle of the night and hop on the computer. This was the ages 12-14 probably for me; the whole elegance in execution thing hadn't really sunk in yet.

Re: Girls and Software

#414

Post by [deleted] »

DanielStraight wrote: post #306
krstck wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... Those are all there in the real world, too. You can't protect kids from anything harmful or scary, nor should you. Stumbling across a porn or horror site is probably more traumatizing for the adult, anyway. It's like people have forgotten what it's like to be a kid! You've been told…

Really? Aside from rather extreme or contrived situations, the average person in the real world simply does not witness multiple graphic deaths or see thousands of women naked. Can we at least consider that there might be a psychological impact of the fact that in one afternoon you can see more horrors and more nudity than 99.999999% of the world would have seen in a lifetime two decades ago? That there is so incredi…

[deleted]

Re: Girls and Software

#415

Post by zhemao »

watwut wrote: post #303
elohesra wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really the crux of it for me. Boys aren't coddled or soothed, they're expected to learn self-restraint, and expected to just get on with it. They're also expected from a young age to put up with being treated somewhat scornfully, so negative socialization has less of an impact. If we look at what VonGuard said of the boys he teaches [0], he said they 'go off ahead and get lost'. Note how this isn't shown as a…

I get what you say about coddling and framing, really. Kids raise to expectation and if you help girl every single time she struggle, she will never become self resilient and will never learn to solve problems. Got that. However, how can one twist helping someone into "distributing own mistakes"? Seriously, that is beyond ridiculous. And going off ahead and get lost is also something entirely different then "they try…

Uh, I don't think I was ever given the impression that it was "normal" for me (a guy) to like coding or math/science in general. It was definitely seen as a "nerdy" thing.

Re: Girls and Software

#416

Post by zhemao »

marquis wrote: post #95

>Young women don't magically become technologists at 22 I did exactly that. I have a degree in the arts, but always loved physics and pursued that secondarily. I failed physics because I had taken arts instead of mathematics but found that that didn't stop me learning C and building all the arts programs I ever wanted. Quite some years ago now and I was an outlier but it's not too uncommon. Good schools are now getti…

It wasn't magic. You deliberately sought to gain experience in computer programming. The author is saying that you can't tell a 22-year-old woman with established interests that she should go into computer programming because "there aren't enough women in tech". The woman has to decide to go that way on her own, as you did.

Re: Girls and Software

#417

Post by zhemao »

HedgeMage wrote: post #146
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.

For my son, it was "Johnny Test" and "Phineas and Ferb", the latter being one of the most well-done bits of hacker/maker propaganda I've ever come across. Amusingly, all the scientists/engineers in Johnny Test that aren't creepy villains are girls (Johnny's twin sisters and occasionally friends). My son had no problem looking up to them anyway. I got a certain amount of crap from others for "letting" him be so into a…

Wait, in what way are either of those shows "girl things"? They seemed pretty gender-neutral to me. Or were you referring to something else?

Re: Girls and Software

#418

Post by lince »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #189
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…

One summer in my childhood, my parents decided to severely restrict my siblings and I's access to the internet for unspecified reasons. We were each allowed 30 minutes use of the family computer and its Internet connection, which was "locked down" by passwords on the BIOS and Windows 98 screensaver. The laptop I shared with my brother and sister was still connected to our home LAN (through one of those crazy Intel An…

Oh, I think I also went through something similar.

At 15, my parents denied me every kind of interaction with computers except for talking with my girlfriend.

I created a MSN Messenger fake with various recorded videos for different days that replayed some of our text conversations. That gave me a lot of time to code my backdoors and others silly projects at age.

At one point my father became suspicious because I spent more time on others windows that on chat one, but the fake was reasonably credible.

A few years ago my father and me shared some laughs when I told him about two things: The one that I have just told and that the worm that made us reinstall the OS was me collecting the beautiful icons in "system32" folder.

Re: Girls and Software

#419

Post by e12e »

belorn wrote: post #409
aestra wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some other definition of which I'm not aware? He has already defined it all over this thread as "It is the idea that women are victims and should get special treatment because of that" and anything else is "my version of feminism." There's absolutely no convincing someone otherwise when they have already made up their mind like that. It's really a shame.

Under that definition of feminist, whats the difference from being a humanist? I rarely if ever see feminist trying to push forward right of men where equality would prompt it. A better definition would be "the movement aimed at equal rights for women [in cases which women are underprivileged compare to men]".

In general, championing equality should be considered a humanist thing to do -- be that equal gender rights, fighting discrimination based on sexuality or race.

Indeed, it would be strange to consider oneself a humanist and not a feminist -- even if feminist is a much more controversial label in some circles.

There aren't as many situation where there is a need for "pushing forward the right of men". One exception might be in terms of (right to) paternity leave -- and that is a typical feminist issue.

In general there are a lot of parallels between gender equality and the civil rights movement. First one identify differences, then one discuss if those differences are justified, and then one tries to change them through various means. One of the many means that are generally argued to be "unfair" is affirmative action or positive discrimination. It's also one of many means that appear to be quite effective.

It's not that long ago prominent people were assassinated for for fighting for equal rights for black people in the US -- and in many countries people are still attacked for championing feminist issues (eg: Afghanistan, India).

That's not even accounting for certain fringe groups in eg: the US with regards to abortion rights -- or the parallels between the July 22 attacks in Norway and the 1989 shootings in Montreal.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/03/montreal-massac...

Re: Girls and Software

#420

Post by Angostura »

freehunter wrote: post #389
Angostura wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you the first time a joker got me to click on a Goatse link, it had a pretty unpleasant impact. I don't particularly want my 9 year old gazing at that.

You learn a valuable lesson from that experience though: don't trust strangers and don't blindly click on links on the Internet. People ask me all the time how I know what's safe online versus what's not, and the only thing I can say is experience. I've fallen for enough scams and clicked enough malicious links to know what they're going to look like.

I seem to recall that it was a link in the middle of a slashdot story that someone had managed to obfuscate in some way. There really wasn't any valuable lesson to learn.
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