Live data from Hacker News

How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

nytimes.com

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#11
post #4

I'm getting really tired of this ignorant "tech is sexist" garbage. women represent a minority of the already small pool of CS graduates. This is not due to discrimination but to individual choice of what a student wants to do with their life. Fewer women CS grads means a smaller ratio of women to men in the tech industry. The author blindly says that VC's want "a couple of guys that can build an app in a weekend". V…

And... you're satisfied with that explanation? "There are fewer women in technical careers, because fewer women choose to go into technical careers, QED"? You're not even a little bit curious about why that might be the case?

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#12
post #11
post #4

I'm getting really tired of this ignorant "tech is sexist" garbage. women represent a minority of the already small pool of CS graduates. This is not due to discrimination but to individual choice of what a student wants to do with their life. Fewer women CS grads means a smaller ratio of women to men in the tech industry. The author blindly says that VC's want "a couple of guys that can build an app in a weekend". V…

And... you're satisfied with that explanation? "There are fewer women in technical careers, because fewer women choose to go into technical careers, QED"? You're not even a little bit curious about why that might be the case?

I am very curious as to why fewer women elect to go into engineering fields. But the article does not address this, it blindly labels tech and men as simply being sexist.

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#13
Wow, it seems most of the comment here, as of now, decided to overlook the parts of the article that explicitly state problems that are most suffered by women. For example, how this woman had a boss who stroke her hair, or how another boss hated to hire women. That kind of pressure does not exist for most men in the industry.

Yes, men suffer from high performance demands in business, but this is not oppression Olympics. Nobody is trying to figure out who has it 'worse'. All this article is saying, is that, as a woman, she has suffered a lot of pressure that is based on her gender, and she even presents examples of it. Men can suffer too because of their gender, but that doesn't mean there isn't a "women in tech" problem, it means we have a "women in tech" problem and a "men in tech" problem.

And it's also true that there is a small pool of women CS graduates. But that doesn't prove that discrimination isn't real. You can also say that the reason the US only has one black president has to do with a smaller pool of black men running for elections, but it'd be ludicrous to say that proves discrimination against black people isn't real.

Then there's one comment of someone implying that the "women in tech" problem is just men wanting to get more women around them, which is not only really men-centric, but also completely ignorant to the article where a WOMAN is explaining the topic and trying to find a solution.

It's incredible how Lewis's Law holds true even for HN.

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#14
post #8

But no matter how strong the social structure, there is always that cheek-slapped moment when you are alone with the anti-woman prejudice: the joke, the leer, the disregard, the invisibility, the inescapable fact that the moment you walk through the door you are seen as lesser, no matter what your credentials. Is this a "tech" thing, or our society in general? I've seen (many) stories of this kind of thing from women…

Both. How work is structured and the kind of work available to you are very linked to society at large. The kind of interpersonal relationships you have at work may mirror those outside of work as well, with the caveat is that it is difficult for most people to switch jobs or kinds of work to avoid contact with people that are harmful to them physically/emotionally/mentally.

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#15
post #11
post #4

I'm getting really tired of this ignorant "tech is sexist" garbage. women represent a minority of the already small pool of CS graduates. This is not due to discrimination but to individual choice of what a student wants to do with their life. Fewer women CS grads means a smaller ratio of women to men in the tech industry. The author blindly says that VC's want "a couple of guys that can build an app in a weekend". V…

And... you're satisfied with that explanation? "There are fewer women in technical careers, because fewer women choose to go into technical careers, QED"? You're not even a little bit curious about why that might be the case?

It's cultural. Tech isn't necessarily sexist. It's just always portrayed as dominated by one gender. When a group, let alone a nation, holds the zeitgeist that "boys where blue, girls wear pink," it becomes a truism that is followed/acknowledged even if it makes little sense.

For example, is pink a masculine or feminine color? Depends on the culture. Same with tech. As long as our culture raises women with a, "leave the technical to guys," it's going to stay skewed.

In order for this unbalanced ratio to change, the culture needs to change - and it needs to start with kids. After all, who were you're heroes growing up? How do they differ from your sister/girlfriend/wife/mothers? How do our role-models/heroes impact our life orientations?

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#16
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... you're satisfied with that explanation? "There are fewer women in technical careers, because fewer women choose to go into technical careers, QED"? You're not even a little bit curious about why that might be the case?

I am very curious as to why fewer women elect to go into engineering fields. But the article does not address this, it blindly labels tech and men as simply being sexist.

Where does the article says that men are simply being sexist?

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#17
It always surprises me that gender prejudice turned by 180 between 1970 and 1980. Programmer was a cheap woman job: Typist, data typist, COBOL programmer was a typical career. It was believed that men can not even type 40 years ago, when I started to become a coder. Suddenly programmer became a male job. And the code quality dropped drastically from 1 bug per 10000 lines to 1 bug per 1000 lines. hey Code had to be bug free !BEFORE! it was submitted to the compiler in a typical female team.

So the male programmer prejudice brought less quality for a higher price.

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#18
So I have this female friend that interviewed a few days ago in a small embedded device workshop - so they ask her to implement bubble sort in C. She manages this and then they as k her can you work with oscilloscope and she answers "No but I can learn fast" then they dismiss her and unofficially tell her that they won't hire her because girls don't like working close to hardware.

So bias against women is alive and well. She was discarded for a non issue.

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#19

Yet another article that perpetuates the myth that ONLY women are faced with high performance demands in business: "This strange illness meanwhile left the female survivors with an odd glow that made them too visible, scrutinized too closely, held to higher standards. It placed upon them the terrible burden of being not only good but the best." This is a very common argument and it is false. Many corporate cultures a…

You do realize that the sentence you quoted (and the article itself) does not say that only women suffer from high performance demands? It's just saying that a lot of the high performance demands for women stem from the fact that being fewer means more scrutinization?

> Many or even all men can feel this same expectation in performance-based professions, but they will not blame their sex.

Maybe they should, maybe there is a problem affecting men right now because of their gender. Why are those men (and apparently you too) dismissing the concept entirely? There are science fields made to study this topic. Why don't men take advantage of them to figure out if the high performance demands come from masculinity or some other gender-related thing?

Re: How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’

#20
post #13

Wow, it seems most of the comment here, as of now, decided to overlook the parts of the article that explicitly state problems that are most suffered by women. For example, how this woman had a boss who stroke her hair, or how another boss hated to hire women. That kind of pressure does not exist for most men in the industry. Yes, men suffer from high performance demands in business, but this is not oppression Olympi…

I've (male) been in an uncomfortable situation with a female project manager that would come up behind me in my cubicle and rub my shoulders now and then. It wasn't a come-on as far as I can tell. I think she was just doing a "motherly" thing in her mind but it really creeped me out. Actually had forgotten that until reading this...
Post reply on HN