Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

eweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#11

Post by timr »

roadtripgeek wrote: post #6

We're still here. Based on my personal experience, there are plenty of reasons why geek girls are avoiding CS. For starters, I've had to deal with a few of my classmates make lame jokes,like boobs and brains being an inverse ratio and following that up with "Oh hey, you're not flat chested. Haha." It's a no win situation for me. If I complain, I'm too sensitive. If I say something back, I'm a bitch. I've also had pro…

"They look sort of baffled when I explain that no, I want to write code, not manage coders."

Not to condescend, but that will change in ten years.

I base this not on your gender, but on the observation that there are very few old programmers. Everyone debates the reason for this (i.e. is it age discrimination, or is it programmer preference?) but the fact remains that most programmers end up doing other things as they age.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#12

Post by Hexstream »

Tichy wrote: post #2

"There's a perception that being a computer science major leads to a job as a programmer and you sit in a cubicle where you type 12 hours a day and have no interactions with other people" Sounds pretty accurate to me...

If a programmer really types 12 hours a day, something is amiss...

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#13

Post by edw519 »

timr wrote: post #11
roadtripgeek wrote: post #6

We're still here. Based on my personal experience, there are plenty of reasons why geek girls are avoiding CS. For starters, I've had to deal with a few of my classmates make lame jokes,like boobs and brains being an inverse ratio and following that up with "Oh hey, you're not flat chested. Haha." It's a no win situation for me. If I complain, I'm too sensitive. If I say something back, I'm a bitch. I've also had pro…

"They look sort of baffled when I explain that no, I want to write code, not manage coders." Not to condescend, but that will change in ten years. I base this not on your gender, but on the observation that there are very few old programmers. Everyone debates the reason for this (i.e. is it age discrimination, or is it programmer preference?) but the fact remains that most programmers end up doing other things as the…

"there are very few old programmers"

"most programmers end up doing other things as they age"

You base these statements upon what data? Your own observations? Then maybe you need another set of glasses.

There are several million hackers that would disagree with you. Too bad you haven't had a chance to meet too many of them. Probably would have been interesting for both of you.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#14

Post by edw519 »

roadtripgeek wrote: post #6

We're still here. Based on my personal experience, there are plenty of reasons why geek girls are avoiding CS. For starters, I've had to deal with a few of my classmates make lame jokes,like boobs and brains being an inverse ratio and following that up with "Oh hey, you're not flat chested. Haha." It's a no win situation for me. If I complain, I'm too sensitive. If I say something back, I'm a bitch. I've also had pro…

"the ones who go out of their way to be an ass"

Look on the bright side. You may not even have to work with them before they out themselves.

Some of us have to suffer for a while before we find out.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#15

Post by wheels »

roadtripgeek wrote: post #6

We're still here. Based on my personal experience, there are plenty of reasons why geek girls are avoiding CS. For starters, I've had to deal with a few of my classmates make lame jokes,like boobs and brains being an inverse ratio and following that up with "Oh hey, you're not flat chested. Haha." It's a no win situation for me. If I complain, I'm too sensitive. If I say something back, I'm a bitch. I've also had pro…

Something I wrote on the topic a few years back:

"Human Interface Guidelines (Uhm, the other ones.)"

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1051

KDE has had kind of an odd history with female contributors. At the time that I wrote that article, women were leading up every non-development part of the project (translation, documentation, usability, promotion / events, financial / political organization, artwork), but still only made up maybe 1% of the devel team.

My theory at the time was that (a) most people that were majoring in CS in the late 90s got into computers because they played computer games as teens and (b) in the early 90s games were much more targeted towards stereotypically male themes, but I'd have expected things to level out a bit more by now since the primary draw of computers shifted to the internet, which had a more level gender pull.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#16

Post by timr »

edw519 wrote: post #13
timr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They look sort of baffled when I explain that no, I want to write code, not manage coders." Not to condescend, but that will change in ten years. I base this not on your gender, but on the observation that there are very few old programmers. Everyone debates the reason for this (i.e. is it age discrimination, or is it programmer preference?) but the fact remains that most programmers end up doing other things as the…

"there are very few old programmers" "most programmers end up doing other things as they age" You base these statements upon what data? Your own observations? Then maybe you need another set of glasses. There are several million hackers that would disagree with you. Too bad you haven't had a chance to meet too many of them. Probably would have been interesting for both of you.

How about the fact that, a decade out of university, all of my programmer friends have moved into management or other fields?

Where's your data?

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#17

Post by amichail »

timr wrote: post #16
edw519 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there are very few old programmers" "most programmers end up doing other things as they age" You base these statements upon what data? Your own observations? Then maybe you need another set of glasses. There are several million hackers that would disagree with you. Too bad you haven't had a chance to meet too many of them. Probably would have been interesting for both of you.

How about the fact that, a decade out of university, all of my programmer friends have moved into management or other fields? Where's your data?

What's wrong with managing programmers? If you really want to, I'm sure you can contribute some code as well.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#18

Post by timr »

amichail wrote: post #17
timr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the fact that, a decade out of university, all of my programmer friends have moved into management or other fields? Where's your data?

What's wrong with managing programmers? If you really want to, I'm sure you can contribute some code as well.

There's nothing wrong with it. See my original post.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#19

Post by DaniFong »

"Some studies have shown that as soon as girls turn 12—and maybe now it is even younger—they're so into their social image and being liked by boys that they dumb themselves down so not to be seen as a geek," Yusupova said."

I wonder if this has more to do with western high schools than our culture at large. I dropped out on my twelfth birthday. While I did encounter social pressure to move into more sanctioned roles, this was opposed by teachers encouraging me to find what I liked and do it well. I was very lucky -- this isn't something afforded to most high schoolers. It has helped me grow into these interests.

Re: Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

#20

Post by roadtripgeek »

amichail wrote: post #17
timr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the fact that, a decade out of university, all of my programmer friends have moved into management or other fields? Where's your data?

What's wrong with managing programmers? If you really want to, I'm sure you can contribute some code as well.

There's nothing wrong with managing programmers. It was just the assumption that I didn't want to "get my hands dirty" because I was female that bothered me.

I don't know if it's common for project managers to contribute code in other companies. At husband's company, it is pretty much unheard of for for a project manager to write code. Project manager tends to be more of a technical writing/managerial position in his company. There's nothing wrong with that. But I have no wish to be a full time technical writer/manager.

Post reply on HN