101–110 of 130 posts
I don't disagree with the thesis of the article, but the creators of the ENIAC were given no mention and they skipped right to the 'computer girls' as if they were fully responsible for it's genesis.
Because the article isn't about the ENIAC at all. It's about how programming transitioned from being a menial (and thus women's) job, to a prestigious (and thus male) job.
The idea that some people are born for some things is very prevailent. Usually, it is called "talent" and nobody cries foul. As a completely tech-unrelated example: Art schools usually ask you for a portfolio when you apply to show that you are "talented" in art, which would be as if I needed a certificate as a doctor to study medicine. Sometimes these things seem to be accepted, sometimes not. Weird.
There isn't any scientific metric for artfulness so art schools can use any gauge they feel like to filter out prospective students.
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Maybe it made more sense for the business to have you as a developer writing code and her as a manager rather than you as a manager and her writing code?
Then it wouldn't be a problem that there are few women writing software, wouldn't it? Because .. maybe it just makes sense? No that is NOT my opinion, I just want to highlight the logic flaw I see here. You cannot say that the same thing (underrepresentation) is a problem in one case and not in the other, that's just .. weird.
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This is still blaming nerds for something they really can't do anything about. There's really a gap between "scientific surveys" and the terrain I've seen. In my last project as contractor there were 9 male/developers and 4 females with a management title. The meantime-to-management I've seen is 2 years after graduation for women, 7 years for males. All 15% females of my 150-student class are now in management positi…
Maybe it made more sense for the business to have you as a developer writing code and her as a manager rather than you as a manager and her writing code?
Yes, I am a nerd. Yes, I am socially awkward, and I did start programming around 10. And here is yet another article pointing out that all the fun I'm having in my career now is something that should make me feel ashamed or guilty. "People like you are the reason why women won't program! Why can't you go to a bar like everyone else?" I know it's my own bias, but no one was writing articles for me when I was "sticking…
The article's conclusion is more along the lines of: "We're a self-selected group in the programming world now and we often unconsciously project messages that make others who have the potential to diversify the group feel cut out based on metrics that actually have no relevance to their ability to execute programming tasks well"
Highlighted by the often off-hand comments like "oh you don't know that?", "this is so easy!" etc. I think it's more about messaging to let people know "Hey you don't have to be like me and love video games, have made your own arduino project, be active on github, and all that noise to be a good programmer"
So many mysteries of the modern world become quite understandable when you allow yourself the luxury of understanding the relevance of intelligence. It varies among races, knowledge of this is scientifically sound, it is the consensus of everyone who studies it seriously. The modern tendency is to feverishly avert one's eyes from this fact, but it must be reckoned with eventually. I believe we'll all be better off wh…
As a suggestion - do you know that "18" means "Hitler" in some circles? Like, 1=A (because it's the first letter of the English alphabet), 8=H (the 8th letter). A and H - A for Adolf, H for Hitler. Do you think this is going to make people more likely, or less likely, to support the building of this society you propose?
As if that weren't enough, you're on a hiding to nowhere with this in general, I'm afraid.
Suppose you are right. What then? You'll have to stir up so much shit to prove it that there'll be no profit. Sometimes you have to accept second best in the interests of peace. This is especially true when people are involved. "But but but" - no, shut up. There is no "but". This is how people work, and you're stuck with it.
Or suppose you are wrong. And then everybody is justly ignoring you.
Yes, I am a nerd. Yes, I am socially awkward, and I did start programming around 10. And here is yet another article pointing out that all the fun I'm having in my career now is something that should make me feel ashamed or guilty. "People like you are the reason why women won't program! Why can't you go to a bar like everyone else?" I know it's my own bias, but no one was writing articles for me when I was "sticking…
No one is out to make you feel guilty; one of the questions the article brings up is questioning how you, as a seasoned / skilled developer are handling less-seasoned / less-skilled developers.
No one was writing articles for you when you were sticking out like a sore thumb for ... so that's kinda like an angry toddler screaming 'it's not fair mom'.
About that sticking out like a sore thumb in HS. How about being smart and not nerdy in HS? Then you get shunned by 2 groups of people: the nerdy smart ones and the not-nerdy 'dumb' ones. I'm glad we're seeing people writing about this.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
That were my thoughts too .. if they had ignored her "You see, nerds ignore women and make them feel unwelcome", now "see, they are creeps, that makes woman feel unwelcome" - and if you ask "what is your solution?" "They should behave normal." which is the most useless answer ever. If I ask ten people about normal behaviour in a given situation I get ten answers and if I drill a bit further more like 40 answers, almo…
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Yeah, but people aren't tweaking the autoexec.bat files and frigging around with virtual memory settings, tweaking drivers and dealing with crazy work-arounds for their social smartphone games, the way a lot of us did cutting our teeth on PC games. I picked up a tremendous amount of various computer trivia digging around making games work, and basically internalized a lot of debugging techniques before getting out of…
So maybe it is reversed: the fact that you don't need to tweak autoexec.bat any more draws more females to the gaming?
The other thing is, if gaming is the gateway drug, for a lot of people the next step is modding, level design, botting, etc. The more black-boxy games are, the harder that is.
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I don't think the article was really putting socially awkward white males to blame. I believe it tried to say that the diversity (or lack of it) of the field is a result of the shift in targeting a certain type of person for the programmer's job. And this accumulated over time reinforcing the notion until recently that it's sort of a no girls land. I can't help but feel that you're kinda shifting the blame when you s…
diversity (or lack of it) of the field is a result of the shift in targeting a certain type of person for the programmer's job Based on... which facts exactly? Edit: As far as I can see, the picture is that there's a bunch of socially inept males that some shadowy powers carefully select to make a mysoginistic getto to keep women at bay. This is utterly ridiculous, no matter which amount of social science "evidence"…
While some may claim this, it is not stated in the article at all and I don't think this is a mainstream opinion. Also the article actually gave detail about this shift in targeting with the SDC recruiting procedure - and it is clear it was about optimising the work environment - and not to exclude women. This also coincided with the rise of the PC which was targeted at boys - again because they thought they would increase their profits, not because they don't like girls messing with the boy hobbies (it even sounds ridiculous). As I mentioned in my first comment, what we have as a result is not everyone gets equal exposure to computers in similar conditions based on their gender and hence fewer women end up interested in the field.