Django Girls one year later • Hacker News Board

Re: Django Girls one year later

#101

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

anon3_ wrote: post #67

Why not just make your way into take like everyone else? Why are girls special? Why do they get red carpet treatment? That's going to give us a workforce of a lot of women who feel entitlement beats merit.

DjangoGirls is very good at on-boarding women. They provide a non-threatening and positive environment to get over the first hurdles in developing. They focus on that area, they are great at it, and why should we criticize them for this?

I generally think these kinds of "reverse discrimination" arguments are mainly BS. There definitely is discrimination or at least unfavorable biases about gender in technology. Diversity initiatives don't even come close to compensating these disadvantages.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#102

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #33

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…

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.)

The point is that there is evident discrimination, even if we (as men) don't perceive it as such. Many of it is subconscious.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#103

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #47

untog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The point is that the armed forces don't need the PT requirements, and they are mostly a way of selecting recruits.

There are good reasons for increasing diversity, and if that means women, with their naturally lower muscle mass get a lower PT requirement, that is not really favouritism.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#104

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

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…

Actually this is already happening. I wanted to motivate some friends of mine to maybe attend a DjangoGirls workshop and they objected to "Girls" and the girliness.

But in general, women can bear "girliness" even if they don't like it, and it feels a lot less threatening than machoism and more attractive than, say trekki-ism.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#105

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #95

pron wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is plenty of reason to study them; they provide validation/rejection of our theories. That's not always enough to fund sufficient research, especially as those avenues of research show no more promise in uncovering a more fundamental model or validating/rejecting theories better than the ones that are currently explored. > yet fields with no power difference have disparities which directly mirror the disparit…

CS participation was the same or higher than math and physics, and now it's significantly lower. Yes - and this contradicts belorn's theory. My theory is very simple: more math less women, with other factors being secondary. Here is Scott Alexander doing some pretty good regressions (r=-0.82, p=0.0003): http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required... There is lots of evidence of innate ability playing…

> Yes - and this contradicts belorn's theory.

Scientific consensus also disagrees with that theory. We believe that the reason is related to power disparity not simply being a minority group.

> Here is Scott Alexander doing some pretty good regressions (r=-0.82, p=0.0003).

Except that it explains little, as women participation in all fields is rising. So while it may always be the case that you'll find that correlation with mathematical ability, it matters little, as it explains smaller and smaller differences. In fact, a low analytical writing score may correlate better than a high math score. Where things get weird is in CS, and worse: the software industry.

> There is lots of evidence of innate ability playing a significant role in this. Here are some papers...

That's not what the papers show at all. The greatest difference I spotted was twice as many boys as girls over the 99th percentile. We are talking 5x-10x participation gap in software.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#106

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

fooballs wrote: post #58

You don't beat sexism by creating a sexist organisation. It's amazing how people think that there are all these barriers to programming for certain groups of people which must be overcome. There aren't. Sit down, grab a computer and a book, and learn to code. If you're good at it, you'll get a job, and people will respect you. If you can't learn to code on your own, you probably don't have the mental skills necessary…

You should research feminism in general and diversity movements in technology some more. Also Lynn Root's talk at EuroPython was a good recapitulation of current diversity trends.

There is evidence which prooves discrimination and unfavorable bias against women in technology. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with creating organisations for women.

Fact is, several DjangoGirls "graduates" who have never done any programming have gotten programming jobs within a year. So apparently, there is some benefit to their on-boarding and motivational efforts.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#107

Post by wvh » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

fooballs wrote: post #58

You don't beat sexism by creating a sexist organisation. It's amazing how people think that there are all these barriers to programming for certain groups of people which must be overcome. There aren't. Sit down, grab a computer and a book, and learn to code. If you're good at it, you'll get a job, and people will respect you. If you can't learn to code on your own, you probably don't have the mental skills necessary…

I feel it's not about sexism or men versus women.

IT simply attracts too many people of one kind and interest, and it's detrimental to the industry's output. For instance, we can't attract or keep people with creative design or artistic skills in the industry because of the mono-culture in many workplaces. It doesn't matter if those people are men or women; there are a lot of men who also get tired of working in a hardcore IT environment.

I have a friend who's a nurse; that sector simply can't attract men, even though there's a clear need for male power in some of the more physical demanding jobs. It's not about "equality" or "political correctness"; we need their skills.

I have no problem finding Python developers; but I can't find anybody who can do the design, usable interface and graphics while still having enough coding skills to support the project. We need more diverse skill sets and hence, a more diverse group of people. Not because they are women or black or gay or loopy artists; but simply because we could produce something better.

Projects like these might attract a more diverse group of people than stereotypical coders.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#108

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:37 PM UTC

sfk wrote: post #86

indubitably wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the convenient argument that the world is truly a meritocracy, and that those in positions of power, who evaluate merit, have no biases. I do not know whether you are in a position of power, but I note that this argument is often advanced by people in positions of power.

Where are the 50% of open source projects that should have been started by women? Or are they deleted from the Internet by those in power?

It's a BS argument. A lot less than 50% of programmers are women, so there is no way 50% of open source projects (as a sign of merit, as I understand you) could be started by women.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#109

Post by bayesianhorse » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

AlexNeoNomad wrote: post #50

Why can't women just learn Django? Is it necessary to create an organisation for it?

As far as I understand it, there is a misconception that women are bad at programming, or don't like it, or whatever. So yes, motivating women to learn Django is a necessary task if diversity is to be increase.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#110

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #97

pron wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you state your theory clearly enough that I can directly apply it? Certainly. Non-hegemonic groups are marginalized from seats of power. After a long struggle, they may increase participation. Put another way: groups with more power tend to preserve and increase the power difference between them and less powerful groups, while the less-powerful groups may gain a share of the power after a struggle. Sadly, it's…

You've only provided one clear definition of "power", namely "influences the behavior of others". This is simply a relation. It is not an ordering or a cardinality. Yet you then turn around and use "power" in an ordinal way ("power difference") and sometimes even a cardinal way. The definition you give here almost does that, but how do I assign a number to "magnitude in the change of behavior"? You've not defined a "…

> but how do I assign a number to "magnitude in the change of behavior"?

You don't. Read what I wrote.

> You've not defined a "hegemonic group" either.

If you're interested, look it up. I feel a strong sense of deja-vu.

> maybe you can clearly state a hypothetical observation which would prove your theory incorrect

I think I've done it twice in the past when talking to you, so I'll only provide a short abstract here (and again, it's not my theory but the consensus theory): If groups with power were not to resist social mobility (i.e. for less powerful groups to obtain more power) we'd see a constant shift in power distribution, which would be very fluid, while what we observe is the complete opposite: a very stable power structure that then breaks and gets restructured relatively very rapidly during revolutions that are rare. So the pattern is long periods of stability and then quick changes brought about by some explosive event or a demonstrable pattern of slow power acquisition through many struggles. When it comes to women, the pattern is often the latter (there's a simple explanation for that), but you can see how women gain access to politics, law, medicine etc. only after very long fights against very strong opposition (that invariably cite innate ability as the barrier).

> For example, to disprove my "more math less women" theory, you should find a broad category of similar careers, run linear regression on math content vs % female, and find a flat or upward sloping line. I.e., the same analysis as was done on Scott Alexander's post (see my link), but with the opposite result.

Two problems with that. First, yours is not a theory but a description. Second, it is not a very relevant one because it doesn't explain the constant change in participation, nor the gender-gap in the software industry. Finally, while "more math less women" may have always held on average, the slope has changed. I don't think anybody minds if the gender distribution in physics is 60-40%, even if that difference is entirely due to innate ability. So your description does not even compete with mine because it doesn't even try to explain the same phenomenon, which is the one we care the most to explain.

That has little to do with the 4:1 or even 10:1 difference we see in the software industry.