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Coding Like a Girl

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Re: Coding Like a Girl

#71

Post by falcolas »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #47
polarix wrote: post #46

Something is twisted in all these discussions of gender in tech, it really seems like we're just going around in circles over and over again. I've never read anything that felt like a particularly insightful explication of the cause here. Is it possible there's something more fundamental in society that this phenomenon is merely a symptom of, and that the fix is not going to be something like "just challenge yourself…

The gender issues in wider society are the same as those in tech, except tech has a toxic culture and a horrifically skewed gender ratio

I've been in the tech industry, and worked with both women and men for 10 years.

I have never encountered toxicity in this industry.

The only place I encounter true toxicity is on forums, message boards and comments, and in these mediums the toxicity not at all limited to the technology industry.

It's also worth noting that the toxicity, even in these mediums, is limited to a tiny (but vocal) minority, in ratios of which correspond to the larger population's percentage of mentally disturbed individuals.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#72

Post by andrewl »

Richard Hamming discusses clothing, presentation, and the cost of not conforming to expectations in You and Your Research.[1]. It's not exactly analogous to what's described in the article, but related:

John Tukey almost always dressed very casually. He would go into an important office and it would take a long time before the other fellow realized that this is a first-class man and he had better listen.For a long time John has had to overcome this kind of hostility. It's wasted effort!

There are several paragraphs in that section, all worth reading (as is the entire essay).

[1] http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#73

Post by gaius »

spiffyman wrote: post #23
gaius wrote: post #6

The dress story vs jeans, would apply equally to a guy in a suit and tie vs a hoodie.

I don't think that's true. You might get disregarded as a "business guy" if you show up to a meetup in a suit. But it's just as likely that people will just assume you're in financials. One of the better Python speakers I know of shows up everywhere in a suit. But women consistently report not being taken seriously when wearing dresses.

The key takeaway is, as soon as she dressed as a member of "the tribe" everything was fine. So that tells me it's something other than a gender issue.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#74

Post by JDiculous »

zeendo wrote: post #59
JDiculous wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me why this is so horrific? When 95+% of music producers are male, of course men are going to assume that you're not a producer if you're female. When 90+% of developers are men, of course men are going to assume you're not a developer if you're a female. If I saw an extremely tall, handsome, well-dressed, and sociable man at a tech conference, I wouldn't take him to be a developer either. If y…

Forget the connotation 'horrific'. Are you asking why we should work to stop this behavior? Pardon me for assuming but here are my thoughts - Because it's literally systematically oppressive. This behavior makes an entire gender less likely to participate in our field. That's bad for the gender and it's bad for the field. Isn't that enough reason to work to fix it? So what if there are non-malicious explanations for…

I'm saying that it's impossible to fix. If you're a short white guy, people will always initially assume that you're not a pro basketball player.

Again, as long as you're not overly zealous about your assumptions and willing to accept when they're wrong, it's not discrimination or "systematic oppression". Feminists try to turn this into a gender war, but it's really not. It's the circumstance of any minority in any heavily majority-dominated field.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#75

Post by gaius »

spiffyman wrote: post #53
rjbwork wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too formal. It's pretty well known that dev/nerd culture is very pro-casual and anti-formal. The reason for this, in my opinion, is because we are very much a "function over form" culture. People who might be trying to compensate for lackluster ability by impressing with their overly nice dress are usually initially viewed with mistrust.

You're making the mistake of thinking that dresses are formal attire. I'm not a woman, but I don't think that's a valid assumption.

Less formal than a ballgown sure, but definitely more formal than jeans.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#76

Post by jwoah12 »

JDiculous wrote: post #52
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of how when a female singer produces her own music and has limited assistance from a man, reviewers attribute the entire thing to the man: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/21/bjork_pitchfo... It's not even some malicious, deliberate assumption. People have been raised to expect that it is men who do the "real work", and pass over women without thinking about it.

Can someone explain to me why this is so horrific? When 95+% of music producers are male, of course men are going to assume that you're not a producer if you're female. When 90+% of developers are men, of course men are going to assume you're not a developer if you're a female. If I saw an extremely tall, handsome, well-dressed, and sociable man at a tech conference, I wouldn't take him to be a developer either. If y…

> Realistically, there's nothing that will ever prevent people from making assumptions until the tiny minority stops being such a minority.

These kinds of assumptions create an environment in the field that can make it uncomfortable for these "tiny minorities" to enter and become less of a minority. It serves to perpetuate the imbalance. You are 100% correct that it is natural human behavior to make these kinds of assumptions, but that's why we must try to make a conscious effort not to do so if we want to try to balance the demographics.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#77

Post by rjbwork »

skj wrote: post #63
rjbwork wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say what you want, and studies can say what they do, but but vocal fry is annoying. It literally makes me cringe and it grates my ears to hear it.

The telling thing from the "This American Life" episode is that despite both men and women having noticeable vocal fry, 100% of the complaints mentioning it were about the women. This may be an unconscious bias at play.

Nah, I've noticed it in men. The stereotype is this like, laid back hipster douche. It's even more noticeable and annoying when coming from men!

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#78

Post by dragonwriter »

gaius wrote: post #75
spiffyman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the mistake of thinking that dresses are formal attire. I'm not a woman, but I don't think that's a valid assumption.

Less formal than a ballgown sure, but definitely more formal than jeans.

That really depends on the dress. Dresses can range anywhere from the peak of formality (equivalent to white tie attire for men) to somewhere in the neighborhood to nearly the level of informality as athletic or sleepwear, and anywhere in between.

Re: Coding Like a Girl

#79

Post by EGreg »

I remember the uproar about a guy was on the team that landed a spacecraft on a comet, but who then came out of his den with tattoos and a t-shirt that seemed to depict women clothed in lingerie engaging in BDSM. The accomplishments were brushed aside as the guy was reduced to a tearful apology.

I think both sexes should be able to wear whatever they would wear in real life. Depending on the job of course. But when programming, that seems reasonable. I would probably prefer a woman who presents as feminine, as a developer. Maybe that is because I am comfortable with traditional gender dress and think it looks better. But maybe it's because I think the nerdy dress is actually downplaying the feminine qualities in order to fit in with men. Either way, it seems anything you say on the issue can always be spun as sexist, because your preferences can be explained by a lifetime if conditioning.

Unmarried women out-earn men now, but the situation switches when they have children. Is this bad or good? That would imply a goal. For my part I don't understand why or when the goal became for "all women" to start knocking themselves out for 10 hours a day at a corporation and be paid more than their husbands who would share child rearing duties just so women could move up a corporate ladder. Since when is this forcefed as "success" to women? I think, if anything, the agenda itself is sexist. If some women want to do it, they can - there are plenty of opportunities for women who want to work long hours and engage in corporate culture. But in this economy, I think it's actually an exploitative myth being sold to men and women alike, and I don't think many women actually want to maximize their "success" in this dimension, once they consider the trade offs.

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