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Django Girls one year later

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Re: Django Girls one year later

#41

Post by d883kd8 »

Kalium wrote: post #32
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the problem that we are talking about certain subsets of badgers and squirrels. Consider that many of the badgers that originally grew the forest that they now enjoy only did so because they were shunned not just by the squirrels, but by many other badgers. Look closely and you'll notice that some of these badgers, or those of the same subgroup, are resistant to both squirrels and other badgers coming i…

This sounds very much like the central thesis of "When Nerds Collide". Is that intentional?

My guess is no ... "When Nerds Collide" is a great piece of exposition but I doubt it's the source of the idea.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#43

Post by [deleted] »

wyldfire wrote: post #8
mozumder wrote: post #2

The slide illustrations are brilliant. Refreshing to see that level of art direction at a tech conference.

I like them too. I was going to show this to my daughter but after reviewing the slides, I think I'd prefer not to focus on whatever negativity/discrimination occurs in the industry but rather the positive aspects of encouragement/camaraderie/sorority. It's probably appropriate for women and girls who have encountered those setbacks but my daughter's old enough to benefit from programming but young/naive enough not t…

[deleted]

Re: Django Girls one year later

#45

Post by sliverstorm »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #30
belorn wrote: post #9

In every work environment which has an clear gender imbalance we see the same stories of the minority group being pushed out by the majority group. The minority group feel pressured to be more majority-like to fit in, receive comments like "you are good for a minority person", and feel a social expectancy to be more like the majority group. Those who don't behave correctly report of being silenced and treated in a ve…

> 87% of squirrels work in a profession hostile to badgers, and 88% of badgers work in a profession hostile to squirrels. This is a good point, and I think this mindset could go a long way towards avoiding the sort of demonizing that often undermines conversations on this topic. Surely a large part of the dynamic is that the statistical majority can naturally come to regard itself as "normal" (in the normative as wel…

And while it doesn't doesn't come about because badgers are all jerks, we also need to remember that personally exonerating all the badgers is not really the point

You may have "exonerate" backwards in your head?

absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing

Re: Django Girls one year later

#46

Post by sliverstorm »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #4
joe_the_user wrote: post #3

The room is decorated with flowers and balloons, rather than being a "boring classroom" and they do fun things like cupcake tasting or yoga during the day. I suppose that could attract a certain audience but I think a number of girls could feel a bit uncomfortable being pigeon-holed as liking all things "girly". When I was in High School I would have been aghast if someone held a "guy's programming workshop" with wei…

You're overthinking it. They're doing those things because they're fun things to do. If someone gave a programming workshop and had a games room where you could play arcade games, air hockey, shoot pool and play pinball on your breaks, I certainly wouldn't complain. I'd even like trying yoga and cupcakes!

... which kind of highlights how gender divides, once established, reinforce themselves. This group of women chose cupcakes and yoga; in the past (mostly) male teams I have been on chose laser tag and go karts.

Do I like cupcakes? Sure. Do women enjoy laser tag? They kick my butt plenty often. But it makes the workplace less accessible to people who don't like cupcakes or laser tag.

Really I wonder if we're just seeing that a workplace naturally has a culture, not everyone always fits in, and because in this case the divide roughly aligns with a protected class we are caught off-guard and concerned.

(Getting rid of culture in workplaces doesn't seem like a solution)

Re: Django Girls one year later

#47

Post by sliverstorm »

untog wrote: post #36
tomp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it baffling everytime someone refers to men and women as separate groups. What's the point of equality then if we're still so different? (In my experience, if you want to talk about "groups" in programming companies, it's mostly geeks vs. non-geeks, with men and women in both groups.)

What's the point of equality then if we're still so different? To make two separate groups equal? I don't understand what is complex about that. They are separate groups according to how they are often treated in the workplace.

It's an idealogical struggle that goes back and forth.

For example, from my very rough memory:

- People were upset there weren't more women in the armed forces.

- The armed forces lowered PT requirements for women so that more women could make it in (less pushups, slower mile times, can sit down in formation)

- Currently people are mad because that treats women differently. Among other things, it gives a sense that all women are weak and need extra accommodations, and that can hurt them in the eyes of men in the force.

So we have this struggle of wanting to include more women, but we have to figure out how to do it without favoritism.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#48

Post by andrewflnr »

lake99 wrote: post #5
joe_the_user wrote: post #3

The room is decorated with flowers and balloons, rather than being a "boring classroom" and they do fun things like cupcake tasting or yoga during the day. I suppose that could attract a certain audience but I think a number of girls could feel a bit uncomfortable being pigeon-holed as liking all things "girly". When I was in High School I would have been aghast if someone held a "guy's programming workshop" with wei…

I'm in the "whatever works" camp. If someone were to create a "guy's programming workshop" with weight-lifting and sports-talk, I'd welcome the experiment. It's all fine as long as the market demand for programmers is going unmet.

Experiment if you want, but as a guy, I would "nope" right out of there. I don't think those sort of tricks have a net positive impact on your numbers.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#49

Post by pdabbadabba »

sliverstorm wrote: post #45
pdabbadabba wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 87% of squirrels work in a profession hostile to badgers, and 88% of badgers work in a profession hostile to squirrels. This is a good point, and I think this mindset could go a long way towards avoiding the sort of demonizing that often undermines conversations on this topic. Surely a large part of the dynamic is that the statistical majority can naturally come to regard itself as "normal" (in the normative as wel…

And while it doesn't doesn't come about because badgers are all jerks, we also need to remember that personally exonerating all the badgers is not really the point You may have "exonerate" backwards in your head? absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing

Nope. That is exactly what I meant. Whenever workplace discrimination comes up, I get the sense that a certain portion of the community concerns itself primarily with establishing that most (maybe all!) of the people involved are not Bad People. My point is that they may be right, but whether the people involved are Bad People is really not the point.
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