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Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

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Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#121

Post by JohnHaugeland »

smtddr wrote: post #119
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A better analogy would be considering someone getting into a good college because of their connections & wealthy parents vs someone who didn't." In that case, isn't it absolutely imperative to start making those connections, by not demographically binning mentors? Connections don't just spring out of nowhere.

>>Connections don't just spring out of nowhere. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole here because I know where this is leading to from past experience on HN, but.... I think in the tech-scene (probably society in general) some of those connections are easier made (and sometimes come as default) depending on gender/race.

I am confused.

You don't want to make those connections early by arrangement, because they would be more difficult to make later on voluntarily?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#122

Post by pron »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #102
GuiA wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because chances are, she's not isolated from male teachers, and even if she is, the need to offer a relatable role model is more important to inspire and motivate her than the need to not isolate her from male teachers. Over the past 8 years, I've taught programming to people from ages 6 to 50, of all genders and cultural backgrounds. Female students have generally related more to my female colleagues, just like blac…

"the need to offer a relatable role model is more important" My point being that I don't actually believe that people need to be the same gender (or skin color or etc) to be relatable as role models. I think making role models less demographically binned would be an important and positive step. . "Female students have generally related more to my female colleagues" Do you have any reason to believe that this isn't be…

I understand you personally feel this way, but research has shown that this is not the case, and I think it makes sense.

It has been proven that our society is full of gender and racial biases, and to fight them we need to accept this fact so we can have a sensible plan of attack. Apparently we can't just make those biases disappear by wishing them away. It is easier to dismantle them by first fighting the symptoms. If you just tell people to ignore their biases, you will ask them to ignore their personal day-to-day experience, and that's asking a lot. It's hard for people to believe one thing if what they see around them goes against that belief. To change beliefs we must first change the experience.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#123

Post by xname »

LukeWalsh wrote: post #73
xname wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know everyone downvoted?

Comments become more gray and slightly less readable as they accumulate down votes. If you're using something that scrapes the site you might not be able to see it but it's visible on the main news.ycombinator.com site.

This is no evidence for the claim, i.e. EVERYONE downvoted.

Are you suggesting that there is no possibility for any upvote to a gray comment?

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#124

Post by avani »

31reasons wrote: post #51
avani wrote: post #43

I'm a computer science postdoc at the Salk Institute. We're having a big public event next Saturday (Walk for Salk) where we're also doing lab tours. Bring your daughter there and I'll give her an extra tour of the computational areas. (find me at avani@salk.edu)

Love Salk institute! very spiritual architecture too. I am not 12 year old but do you think i can get the tour ? :)

Here is the sign up sheet for lab tours during the event. I'll be volunteering there and am happy to talk about computational methods with anyone who is interested.

http://www.salk.edu/stepintodiscovery/exploresalk.php

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#125

Post by lutorm »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #116
amputect wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average man in an engineering discipline can trivially meet other male engineers, and will be pretty much surrounded by them anywhere they work. This would be true at the grade-school level up through the pinnacle of their careers. This is not true for women. This guy's daughter might be the only girl in her class who feels comfortable expressing an interest in engineering. She might go on to be one of a tiny (an…

If the issue is how common the people are going to be by demographic in the workforce, then shouldn't we start early in making them comfortable with the people they're going to be around, as the ice breaking generation, by mentoring them with the common rather than the rare? I mean I genuinely do not understand why this is actually helpful. The lady engineers I talk to are either all pandering to me, or are as confus…

I do understand that your opinion is that a girl will have an emotional need to only learn from women.

That is not what is being said, it is that it may be useful for a girl to not only learn from men.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#126

Post by avani »

mikeho1999 wrote: post #71
avani wrote: post #43

I'm a computer science postdoc at the Salk Institute. We're having a big public event next Saturday (Walk for Salk) where we're also doing lab tours. Bring your daughter there and I'll give her an extra tour of the computational areas. (find me at avani@salk.edu)

What an incredible idea for an event! But just out of curiosity, has this been publicized at all? I live in SD, and I regularly tune in to local media (especially NPR/KPBS), and yet, reading it here on HN is the first time I've heard about Walk for Salk... Anyway, it sounds like a great event, and I hope to come and bring the family!

There was an employee "contest" to e-mail people and let them know, but we're (sadly) pretty insular out here. Make sure to sign up ahead of time to walk or take a lab tour (http://www.salk.edu/stepintodiscovery/exploresalk.php), and please tell your scientifically inclined friends :-) .

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#127

Post by niels_olson »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #90

Why do you need a woman? I don't understand why we all talk about the gender problem in engineering, then continue it by isolating female students from male teachers. There is no isolation between male students and female teachers, or same gender students and teachers. If we want to move towards equality, why carefully structure inequality in?

> Why do you need a woman?

I don't. I don't need french onion soup either, but it's sure a nice treat on occasion.

> isolating female students from male teachers

Her current math teacher is male, her science teacher is a woman and former pilot of helicopter gunships. I'm her dad, and I help her with her math and science at home. One of our good friends in the neighborhood is a PhD biostatistician who is the CEO of her own research firm.

But why ask for what's common? Within my social circle, half the guys are engineers. Heck, I can arrange for her to get a trip to SpaceX. I don't need the megaphone of Hacker News to get that. In fact, the mom of my son's best friends (twins) is an environmental engineer. So "female engineer in San Diego" is actually a tractable problem within my social circle.

Finding women in each of the many STEM careers is quite another thing. And for that, I tossed it out to Hacker News. When I post things to Hacker News, I generally don't expect a big response. Most of my posts die in /new. This didn't, which I'm grateful for.

> why carefully structure inequality in?

Because equality is often an unstable equilibrium. So exerting a force opposed to the instantaneous natural tendency may be the right response at any given time. In fact, the system may have to be permanently pre-stressed to change from unstable to stable.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#129

Post by king_jester »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #101
arbutus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to be able to see people who look like your potential future self. There's more to it than just seeing neat work - everyone needs role models. Kids are very perceptive. This girl sounds lucky to have parents who encourage her in STEM topics, but that doesn't shield her from media/misguided school teachers/councillors/other kids telling her these things aren't for her. Having a female role model is a po…

I'm a man and I modelled my professional self on a woman, so I have some difficulty with this. I believe that choosing to limit one's role models by gender is a problem.

> I believe that choosing to limit one's role models by gender is a problem.

No one is talking about limiting to one kind of role model. Indeed, since women in STEM are not as represented as men, it may be limiting to not allow a student to seek out a role model who is a woman as they may never encounter one by happenstance. Having a role model you identify with, esp. with a trait that is a minority in some group, is one of the ways people can counteract imposter syndrome.

Re: Any female engineers in San Diego interested in showing my daughter their work?

#130

Post by king_jester »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #105
mynameisasdf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I was thinking. Its quite insulting to suggest that girls are so myopic they can't possibly be inspired unless they meet someone of the same gender. For the record, I'm a female engineer who moved to the USA from Ghana when I was a smaller. I can't stand this ridiculous patronizing attitude there is towards female engineers, as if we need "extra help" or something. Even worse are the feminists creating u…

I am glad to know there are others who see it the way I do. I draw great inspiration from people who do not have my gender, my race, or several other role model limiting demographic factors. I feel very sad for people who are set up to not have the advantage of looking up to everyone of value. =========== Edit: why is this being downvoted? Is it disagreeable to say "I have learned from people unlike me?" Are we now s…

The reason why you are being downvoted is that the notion of "I think people of every gender, race, etc are of value and should be available." doesn't really address the issue of why someone who is in a minority in STEM would seek out someone like themselves as a role model.

People have value, but we can't deny that for some people finding someone like themselves in a particular field is very difficult. Those people certainly can and do learn from others, but finding someone that has faced the same issue and challenges as themselves is very helpful in not only exploring an issue, but also in counteracting stereotype threat.

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