How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
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Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#2> Last month, Google announced its plan to spend $50 million over the next three years encouraging young women to give coding a try. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. The first item on a page of coding projects for girls to try is a 3-D-printed bracelet.
> "It's insulting, not only because it's highly gendered, but also because it perpetuates this idea of women as consumeristic and narcissistic," said Losh. "It's kind of like a trifecta of badness."
Professor Losh needs to do some field research. A few hours hanging out in a mall or other place popular with young people will show that a large fraction of young women do in fact do seem to have quite an interest in jewelry.
Including a 3D bracelet project sends the message to young women who have not considered coding that it can be a part of their current world. It's something they can apply to their lives, not something they have to change their lives in order to use.
What's insulting is Losh's implicit assumption that women who wear bracelets must be doing it because they are narcissistic and consumeristic. Why can't they wear them for aesthetic reasons? Or sentimental reasons?
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#3> Last month, Google announced its plan to spend $50 million over the next three years encouraging young women to give coding a try. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. The first item on a page of coding projects for girls to try is a 3-D-printed bracelet. > "It's insulting, not only because it's highly gendered, but also because i…
Where do you think female interest in jewelry comes from? Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women? You are begging the question.
The professor is concerned with general culture's image of women, which is perpetuated when female programmers are shown to be printing pink jewelry and perpetually enraptured by childish flowery borders. The existence of individual women who enjoy jewelry for the aesthetics are of no consequence to what the professor is concerned with. You are responding to an assumption that isn't there, but rather one you've imagined as a substitute for an understanding of the her social analysis.
>"It says that the only way you can be interested in technology is if it is girly," said Wheat. "I'm very girly. My room is purple. I have floral bedding. I think I'll probably be a very feminine engineer. I just don't like the idea of being pigeonholed."
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#4> Last month, Google announced its plan to spend $50 million over the next three years encouraging young women to give coding a try. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. The first item on a page of coding projects for girls to try is a 3-D-printed bracelet. > "It's insulting, not only because it's highly gendered, but also because i…
Where do you think female interest in jewelry comes from? Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women? You are begging the question. The professor is concerned with general culture's image of women, which is perpetuated when female programmers are shown to be printing pink jewelry and perpetually enraptured by childish flowery borders. The existence of individual women who enjoy jewelry for the aesth…
"Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women?"
This is an extremelly important question with regards to history of our species, so if you by some chance have an answer be sure to share it with us along with rationale.
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#5That other article in the front page: "Clicking Their Way to Outrage", this is exactly what it is talking about.
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#6> Last month, Google announced its plan to spend $50 million over the next three years encouraging young women to give coding a try. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. The first item on a page of coding projects for girls to try is a 3-D-printed bracelet. > "It's insulting, not only because it's highly gendered, but also because i…
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Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#7There's a difference between female people and femininity. Not all women are into femininity to significant degrees or to any degree, and some see it as a questionable social construction [1]. The women in the article are simply proposing that using extreme degrees of femininity to appeal to potential female programmers is not a sustainable campaign, given that that's not what the actual programming world is like. Role models do a lot more for children [2]
[1] http://feministcurrent.com/8789/femininity-is-no-joke-nomake... [2] http://reelgirl.com/2013/11/im-not-a-pilot-im-a-pilots-wife-...
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do you think female interest in jewelry comes from? Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women? You are begging the question. The professor is concerned with general culture's image of women, which is perpetuated when female programmers are shown to be printing pink jewelry and perpetually enraptured by childish flowery borders. The existence of individual women who enjoy jewelry for the aesth…
"Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women?" This is an extremelly important question with regards to history of our species, so if you by some chance have an answer be sure to share it with us along with rationale.
It's not. Such a thing would be impossible. Look up "gender socialization" and read about girlhood:
http://www.metafilter.com/121190/teenage-girls-they-havent-b...
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/jan...
http://sodisarmingdarling.tumblr.com/post/34106027759/what-i...
http://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/is-my-son-smart...
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#9From the article:
"It seems so degrading," Wheat said. "If you're a girl interested in building websites, you're a 'web diva.' If you're a boy, you're a web developer."
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I have seen many a job posting looking for web ninjas, rockstars, and the like.
Our industry has a history of being rather informal, and often catering to the narcissistic side of developers. Sometimes this is for the better, sometimes not (e.g. the "bro-grammer" bullshit recently). I personally have no interest in loosing our informal culture to the PC police.
Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink
#10That other article in the front page: "Clicking Their Way to Outrage", this is exactly what it is talking about.
Snark is the universal solvent of cultural conversation. - http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html...