131–140 of 238 posts
"Assigning a label to myself like “hacker” or “developer” gives me the heebie-jeebies." This in particular is not limited to women. As a guy from a non-CS background, I felt the same way for a long time. I'd say it's a function of experience rather than gender.
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Isn't there a way how to teach those adolescent males to behave like humans? If their behavior is that bad that it makes uncomfortable learning environment for other students, then it needs to be addressed. I'm woman and my experience is that most adolescent males are not apes and are able to act like human. Separating them by gender is accepting bad behavior as norm when it actually is not a norm. Young polite males…
I don't think you're thinking young enough. When's the last time you tried to control an impulsive 6th grader?
Maybe because such behavior is not considered "normal" here. They do display such behavior more often when they are in boys only group eg. physical education class. Not coincidentally, it is class where it is tolerated more.
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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…
I'm not saying all males put on pseudo-masculine efforts, I'm saying it only takes one kid who makes an inappropriate joke like changing "public void" to "pubic void" when we're doing a code review. In such a situation, the boy will suppress a smile while he innocently exclaims he made a typo, while his friends all giggle innocuously. If you don't work with kids, you will not fully understand how the adolescent mind…
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How do you make the determination that the interest is necessarily "natural" when children's minds are so pliable growing up? It's a proven fact that boys and girls are treated differently by their parents and the media, and surely their older peers...
As I said in the other replay above, the "natural" interest isn't just from growing up, but it's also the unforced way of being interested in the topic or simply getting hooked on the idea of programming. Sure you can learn to program as you can learn to play a game or learn how to knit, but why do we have to artificially get women into the industry just to get number imbalance up? I guess the situation is simply dif…
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Way to throw out the righteous indignation before anything actually happened. That doesn't add to the conversation at all and, if anything, just invites problems.
It did have a horrible tone but we know it's true. There are some deeply unpleasant people on HN who are happy to spew some really vile opinions.
I miss those days. Nowadays it's dismiss, demonize and downvote.
Tongue in cheek, but I think there might be a point here struggling to see the light of day... Why? I mean, why would women want to get into coding? If one is not already working with computers, from the outside world, its a crappy job, and the money isn't better than many other things. Not to mention the insane hours culture. Women have a clean sheet choice. Why work in an office, killing your brain on hugely comple…
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Being a woman does not give person any extra value. Show us something interesting or go back in the kitchen.
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What?
Animus9 is an obvious mens rights advocate. They are indistinguishable from trolls; the only difference being that they believe the stuff they say.
Here is my abridged comment: 1. It is important to like who you are and what you do. I am glad you are proud of being who you are, 2. But at the same time I don't like when people are calling out initiatives like "more women in tech". Look, getting a job is tough. It can be luck or qualification. I know someone is going to cite some research studies but at this point, let's just say yes we get it, a lot of assholes o…
No one is "telling" girls to do anything. You seem to recognize that the issue is bigger than "women (and men) in tech," that it's actually more about "women and men" in general, but you don't want to put any effort into thinking or learning about gender. Organizations for girls in tech offer resources to the few girls who are actually there. I encourage you to try to find me a program that isn't completely voluntary…
I did not say a gun was pointing at the girls to force them to program. If low female population in the tech sector is due to the lack of resource and the stereotyped masculine geek image, then how does inviting girls to an all-girl programming class help them in the long run?
If we want to minimize stereotype, and if the stereotype has to do with gender, then we need to educate both genders. This means bring in female speakers to educate and show to both the boys and the girls what they do as software engineer or as a mechanical engineer. The same resource we offer to girls can be offered to boys.
Because the popular culture has associated geek with a masculine image, a lot of girls don't think they are capable of or should be involved. Is mixed gender event less powerful than single-gender event? To some extent yes. For the beginning, the girls may feel comfortable with their own gender. But later on? First time working with a guy on a hackathon project? I am not shy, but if you ask me to work with a female for the first time, I probably end up being shy and careful.
but you don't want to put any effort into thinking or learning about gender
What do I need to know about gender? What is special there that I am not aware of?
In reality, people think differently about themselves. Some people think they are more capable than others. The best we can hope is that we can give each other a chance to show what they can do, to bust the myth that guys are better.