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To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

susieye.com

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Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#101

Post by graeme »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #37

It would be really nice to see more females in the industry, but I rally have to ask myself if those artificial promotions will help much. I never learned to program because of some courses or because the industry needed me, I started programming because I wanted to create things. There was just a natural interest in computers and how they work, that's what drove and often still drives me today. If females have the s…

How did you develop this 'natural' interest in programming? I am male, but had literally zero role models, and my school system never covered computers. I made it to age 25 without knowing what a programming language is.

But when I found out I was bloody hooked on the idea!

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#102

Post by _bfhp »

obstacle1 wrote: post #79
_bfhp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

primitivesuave was literally recounting their own experience with young children; are they "sexist", or is describing reality just not to your liking? What does "acting like boys" even mean, may I ask? primitivesuave was taking about the toxic masculinity that involves macho superiority and violence, sorry if it upsets you that that's what masculinity involves. primitivesuave wasn't talking about genitals, they were…

primitivesuave's post is fraught with unconscious sexism. That is the problem. First he generalizes that all adolescent males put on "pseudo-masculine efforts". No they don't. That's just as much a stereotype as "all girls suck at coding" or whatever stereotype-du-jour militant feminists are raging about this week. Maybe a few of the students put on "displays" that he considers to be "pseudo-masculine efforts". That…

"ostracized by pseudo-masculine efforts undertaken by adolescent males" - I don't see the word "all" in there

"militant feminists"? Really?

Masculinity is a socially constructed, we can identify [1] masculinity as a phenomenon, that's what the field of sociology is for.

I do agree that segregation is not a solution, but you're assuming bad faith on primitivesuave's part, who apparently was is trying to give kids the best environment to learn in. One has to wonder why you do this.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#103

Post by dzink »

Kudos to Susie for putting herself out there to make a point! For everyone else debating this issue: to look at the problem objectively, we have to break down the different clusters of people that need encouragement and support to get into tech/startups in order to see how we measure and fix each cluster:

1. American children of any affiliation (race, sex, gender, location) need to learn how to code, because it is the literacy of the future - without it you are left behind in both earnings potential and career choices. To make that happen everyone here can take a step to show a child something cool they can do with code. Get them fired up about expressing their creativity with the tools of tech! For every one child that reminds you of you when you were young, pick three that don't, to make things even in the long run.

2. Niche groups, previously underrepresented in tech need better representation, because diverse perspectives raise the permutation of potential problems noticed, problems tackled and solutions possible, period. Representation also leads to better mentorship, resources, and an even start for everyone with talent and grit, regardless of background. Once we get a unicorn IPO from each underrepresented group, things will change. If we aren't getting those, something is wrong with 1) or 3) or both.

3. Existing representatives of underrepresented groups in tech who have the experience and skills to lead and build successful businesses today need to be able to receive the same support and the same proportion of support as regularly represented groups. Nothing more, nothing less. We have yet to see data from anyone about percentage of seed* funded startups out of 1000 applicants from their representative group. That data can easily close this conversation for good or surface a problem that can be addressed next if need be. If there is a real problem here however, teaching children how to code won't be the way we need to solve it. This is the only data we have seen and it is not encouraging: http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/11/02/how-female-en... .

How would you detect or solve for a problem in this cluster?

* mentioning seed, since that sample would be most likely to be sufficient to gauge trust in underrepresented groups by investors. Later rounds could skew for industry trends in the short run. The goal is to run a regression that shows objective information.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#104

Post by watwut »

obstacle1 wrote: post #53
primitivesuave wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never consider a female coder to be any different from a male one. I am merely giving anecdotal evidence that female students of the 11 - 17 age group learn significantly better when they are amongst their peers. My decision to make a few of our classes into girls-only ones was to allow the girls who felt uncomfortable in a male-dominated setting to still have an opportunity to learn in a setting they found c…

>I would never consider a female coder to be any different from a male one You literally segregated males from females in your coding class. That is considering them to be different. >female students of the 11 - 17 age group learn significantly better when they are amongst their peers. So male students aren't peers of female students? Really? I'm pretty sure you're not being purposefully malicious, but jeeze... Your…

@DanBC There is not that much evidence and I do not see best education system in the world moving to gender educated classes. There is one experiment on few kids with all kinds of special conditions.

Plus, there are some proves that girls perform worst when reminded of all "incapable woman" stereotypes.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#105

Post by _bfhp »

caiob wrote: post #28

Since when did this become an issue? Tired of hearing that company X or company Y should hire more females. We have way more serious problems to solve, really.

"Tired of hearing that company X or company Y should hire more females."

When did the writer of this article say this? When has anybody said this? Please, I'm very interested.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#106

Post by poorelise »

_bfhp wrote: post #94
chongli wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

( Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc. ) I think the problem is that we always name these two . Ada Lovelace died 161 years ago. Is she really all that relevant a role model for girls today?

Well, with the combined factors of WWII keeping the men busy, and the general conception around that time that "computing" was boring data-entry work -- and so, fit for women -- the fact that those handful of pioneering women (Hopper et al) were alive around early/mid 20th century isn't coincidence. The last real "wave" of women programmers has long been over..

There are many famous female coders working atm, I think there is even a web site dedicated to them.

The problem is when you require a "wave". Then people start getting really confused about statistics and correlation vs causation.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#107

Post by animus9 »

romanovcode wrote: post #51
animus9 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing suspicious is the propaganda machine which is creating this never ending list of gender-tech articles and their associated divisionist jargon. Social construct theory is dead. Girls who have a genuine interest in technology couldn't care less about the sex of their coworkers (because if they did then they would be sexists).

Posts like these get high views. I'd say it's more of a link-bait thing.

I have watched the manipulation of online forums in real time by a specific group with a specific political agenda. Hacker News might very well be the next victim.

It used to be about technology. What place does subversive gender politics and social construct theory have amongst hackers and lovers of technology?

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#108

Post by poorelise »

DanBC wrote: post #91
jacobtracey wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?

Animus9 is an obvious mens rights advocate. They are indistinguishable from trolls; the only difference being that they believe the stuff they say.

So advocating mens right is equal to being a rightwing military cult person?

Are you really of the opinion that men's rights are not important?

Also, ad hominem...

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#109

Post by _bfhp »

_bfhp wrote: post #94
chongli wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

( Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc. ) I think the problem is that we always name these two . Ada Lovelace died 161 years ago. Is she really all that relevant a role model for girls today?

Well, with the combined factors of WWII keeping the men busy, and the general conception around that time that "computing" was boring data-entry work -- and so, fit for women -- the fact that those handful of pioneering women (Hopper et al) were alive around early/mid 20th century isn't coincidence. The last real "wave" of women programmers has long been over..

@poorelise - I admit that I'm ignorant of modern figures in programming who are women. What I meant with "wave" is that the famous women programmers that are often mentioned/taught about, cluster around a time period where we can identify a trend.
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