Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014 • Hacker News Board

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#41

Post by alukima » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 5:55 PM UTC

parennoob wrote: post #7

As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it), it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the beneficiaries of programs such as these on…

Why don't you seek out or create a group for Asians and/or work towards raising awareness about the racial discrimination you've experienced?

I'm not highly-education and lived well below the poverty line for the majority of my life. If not for programs like this I would still be there.

Study after study has shown that different groups learn and interact in different ways. Programs like this can teach to those differences without treating them like a defect. For instance, women don't respond to competitive environments the same way men do. Women tend to shutdown while men push forward. I've taught unisex (although it was mostly male) and women only coding classes. Women tend to pair more and help each other. Men tend to work alone.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#42

Post by justinsteele » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

bttf wrote: post #30

rollo wrote: post #8

Sounds like it was great last year, so it's absolutely worth it. Such events are definitely needed.

Why are they needed? To counter genderism? If so, doesn't it seem self-defeating to try to outgrow our sexist prejudices by actively countering them? If women have suffered discrimination in the software development community, we can all make an effort not to let it happen. But to create an institutionalized/organized effort towards countering prejudice is to strengthen it by latching on to it, rather than acknowledg…

We can all simply "make an effort not to let it happen" in 2014? Shucks, I wish we had thought of this earlier! Such an easy solution.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#43

Post by bullfight » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:01 PM UTC

azakai wrote: post #39

I tried to donate to this, but 1. The popup to donate shows up on a page where the URL is not https. This looks wrong, but closer inspection shows that it is an iframe that is in fact properly secured. But had I not known how to find that out (right-click, show page info), I would not enter my credit card info on a non-https site. 2. My card was declined, the first time in my life that that has ever happened. I tripl…

On point 2

I went through the same thing. Your card was declined because these donations are being routed through the Travis Foundation's Stripe account which is now based in Germany. As an international org based in Germany your bank/cc flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent.

I don't think Rails Girls/Travis can do much about this, you need to call your bank to get them to allow the transaction.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#44

Post by computer » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

nmrm wrote: post #23

This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments. As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I think this is important. I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I stopped programming entirely a…

I have experience with summer camps for Mathematics (as a participant) for kids from 10-18. I'm not sure how they manage to achieve it, but it was probably 55%/45% male/female. I think that half the camp elders being female helped a lot, as well as wise promotion and word of mouth after 20 successful years.

I feel that the camps being mixed added a ton to the experience. I can't begin to describe all the benefits, but for me as a boy, the camps first showed me that both genders can be interested in nerdy stuff, and that such interests are actually fine and quite normal.

However, if it would have been 95% boys, I think it would have been better to split them by gender. Especially among children it's hard to be the only girl in a group of only boys. Then, once the girl group starts to grow by intelligent promotion and word of mouth, perhaps you can merge the camps once the split is more favorable.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#45

Post by azakai » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

bullfight wrote: post #43

azakai wrote: post #39

I tried to donate to this, but 1. The popup to donate shows up on a page where the URL is not https. This looks wrong, but closer inspection shows that it is an iframe that is in fact properly secured. But had I not known how to find that out (right-click, show page info), I would not enter my credit card info on a non-https site. 2. My card was declined, the first time in my life that that has ever happened. I tripl…

On point 2 I went through the same thing. Your card was declined because these donations are being routed through the Travis Foundation's Stripe account which is now based in Germany. As an international org based in Germany your bank/cc flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent. I don't think Rails Girls/Travis can do much about this, you need to call your bank to get them to allow the transaction.

Requiring people to call their bank is a much higher barrier than it should be, though? I buy stuff online all the time and things just work. I hope Rails Girls can use another payment processing solution.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#46

Post by bttf » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

justinsteele wrote: post #42

bttf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they needed? To counter genderism? If so, doesn't it seem self-defeating to try to outgrow our sexist prejudices by actively countering them? If women have suffered discrimination in the software development community, we can all make an effort not to let it happen. But to create an institutionalized/organized effort towards countering prejudice is to strengthen it by latching on to it, rather than acknowledg…

We can all simply "make an effort not to let it happen" in 2014? Shucks, I wish we had thought of this earlier! Such an easy solution.

I'm not offering a solution but just what I think is a more sensible way of approaching the problem.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#47

Post by nmrm » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

computer wrote: post #44

nmrm wrote: post #23

This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments. As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I think this is important. I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I stopped programming entirely a…

I have experience with summer camps for Mathematics (as a participant) for kids from 10-18. I'm not sure how they manage to achieve it, but it was probably 55%/45% male/female. I think that half the camp elders being female helped a lot, as well as wise promotion and word of mouth after 20 successful years. I feel that the camps being mixed added a ton to the experience. I can't begin to describe all the benefits, bu…

Thanks for sharing! I never had the opportunity to attend such a camp, and I'm glad to hear mathematics camps are well balanced.

I agree that the merging strategy makes a lot sense, esp. for the reasons you give in the second paragraph. Hopefully the critical mass of girls interested in CS will exist soon.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#48

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:13 PM UTC

nmrm wrote: post #23

This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments. As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I think this is important. I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I stopped programming entirely a…

[deleted]

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#49

Post by adamdavis » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:14 PM UTC

TheFullStack wrote: post #33

adamdavis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're very sadly mistaken - white people can be victims of racism, too, you dig? I grew up and went through a school system where white people were by far the minority, and yes, I had to deal with racism. edit: Downvotes? Yikes. Like most people, I'd prefer some constructive replies instead of silent detractors, but it is what it is.

I'm never going to change your mind on this and you will never change my mind so let's leave it at that.

No worries. Sorry we don't have the opportunity to have a more in-depth conversation about it.

Re: Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

#50

Post by colmvp » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:16 PM UTC

lomegor wrote: post #26

parennoob wrote: post #7

As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it), it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the beneficiaries of programs such as these on…

Why do you feel the need to say that Asian people are more at a disadvantaged that women? Can't we agree that both are at a disadvantage and we should help them? Your statement is highly subjective and really difficult to prove. You are also implying that we should help women less and Asian people more. Don't be like that. There's absolutely no need to try to empower one group while lowering another one.

Not the OP, but in this context, I think Asian men are meant to feel privileged by virtue of being a) male and b) heavily represented in the tech scene. And yet at the end of the day, Asian men suffer from racial disadvantages that may never be addressed in our lifetime. Hence, there is sort of a cognitive dissonance that develops.