To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by daleharvey » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:10 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #118

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…

I dont think the gender split is the issue that needs to be fixed, if the ratio was uneven for some particularly boring reason then I dont think its an issue that people would care about as much.

The problem I care about is that this industry is hostile to a very large group of people, women arent around not only because they arent encouraged early on, but because they are being driven out when they do get here, ask any women in the industry what their experiences have been and it will likely be surprising and upsetting, it has been to me at least every time.

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

#142

Post by nthrow » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:11 AM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #111

DanBC wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

@poorelise - you seem unfamiliar with what DanBC means by "mens rights advocate" -- let me help you: Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats - http://feministcurrent.com/7555/mens-rights-activistsadvocat... The most persuasive MRA ever - http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/11/the-most-p... White Hot Rage: the men's rights movement - http://prospect.org/article/white-h…

Cherry picking incidents involving the actions of disturbed individuals to attempt to smear a multifaceted movement is intellectually dishonest. That's like claiming all Muslims are terrorists because some Muslims are.

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

#143

Post by JonnieCache » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:16 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #59

olefoo wrote: post #3

There is nothing about programming computers that is gender specific; in fact it seems kind of weird and awkward that we have to discuss this at all. Given that so many of the foundational figures of the field ( Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc. ) were female, the fact that programming and IT became an almost entirely male-dominated profession is suspicious, and should make us question the attitudes and social constru…

( 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?

As soon as it became clear that software was an important and serious business, it immediately became male-dominated.

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

#144

Post by _bfhp » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:16 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #140

_bfhp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No one is "telling" girls to do anything 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 educa…

I agree that these classes should not be touted as "the solution", especially when the problem has not really even been articulated. But I'm of the opinion that women need all the help they can get financially, and so organizations offering resources to women for a good profession are doing good work. You may not see it that way, and I'm not going to try to sway you.

Increasingly many social scientists are thinking about "gender" ("women and men") as a social construction, laid on top of material reality (sex dimorphism, "males and females"). There's a wellspring of new thought, theory, and research in the past 20 years on gender, including:

Doing Gender - Candace West; Don H. Zimmerman - http://blog.lib.umn.edu/clar0514/academic/west%20and%20zimme...

Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine - http://www.cordeliafine.com/delusions_of_gender.html

The Gender Trap by Emily Kane - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095VEM5O/ref=cm_cr_thx_vi...

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

#145

Post by eXpl0it3r » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:17 AM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #117

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, I might have been "spoiled" with growing up in a rather techy environment, my dad worked with PC ever since I can remember. I however think that the schooling system needs to start including computer science subjects and by that I don't just mean how to use Microsoft Word. Then again the question is, why do females not get hooked on the idea, even when they don't grow up in such a techy environment. Is it…

It's probably not the fault of the "programming world", but rather gender roles in their entirety, where boys and girls are pushed toward certain interests and away from others. Programming is often seen as "geeky" (lesser so today than in the past) and girls are encouraged to "not be geeky," to fit in with their peers. Boys are, I think, much less socially penalized.

It's something one can certainly think about and be aware of, but then again it's just a theory. Personally I haven't experienced this. I grew up with my sisters and they had the same exposure to computers as I and my brother did and there was never any pressure from my parents or us that computers is just a boy thing, but my sisters never had the same natural interest in programming. I actually even tried to teach a few things to them, but it seemed to be too complex for them and their own curiosity didn't drive them to learn more on their own, as I did.

While I see and lived that parents have an influence on PC usage at a young age, I wouldn't say they are push children towards or away from it, but I guess there is always something going on. I agree that every boy and girl should have the same chances on learning computer stuff, but I don't see it necessary that one has to artificially push girls or boys towards a topic. If they don't have the interest at the topic, there's no reason to teach them all about it, just so we can "solve" an imbalance.

I know some believe that interest is purely influenced, I can't agree with that. Interests can be hugely influenced, yes, but there are studies showing that there exists natural interests for certain kind of toys of around one year old children.

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

#146

Post by eXpl0it3r » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:20 AM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #135

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

See my other comment -- also, see the book Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, and The Gender Trap by Emily Kane

See my other comment -- I don't believe in these "theories", in fact I'm rather against them, but I won't go into details.

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

#147

Post by jaimebuelta » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:21 AM UTC

It's just me or describing in the tech world things that are rare but clearly do exist like 'unicorns' seems a little weird?

(I know is quite common way of talk, but still...)

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

#148

Post by _bfhp » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:25 AM UTC

nthrow wrote: post #142

_bfhp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@poorelise - you seem unfamiliar with what DanBC means by "mens rights advocate" -- let me help you: Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats - http://feministcurrent.com/7555/mens-rights-activistsadvocat... The most persuasive MRA ever - http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/11/the-most-p... White Hot Rage: the men's rights movement - http://prospect.org/article/white-h…

Cherry picking incidents involving the actions of disturbed individuals to attempt to smear a multifaceted movement is intellectually dishonest. That's like claiming all Muslims are terrorists because some Muslims are.

"Disturbed individuals"? Did you read the articles? The people being describes are the leaders of the "movement", like Elam. The "movement" obviously encourages the behavior being described -- meanwhile, groups like CAIR work hard to address the popular image of the terrorist Muslim. Where is the CAIR of "men's rights" I wonder

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

#149

Post by _bfhp » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:27 AM UTC

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #146

_bfhp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my other comment -- also, see the book Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, and The Gender Trap by Emily Kane

See my other comment -- I don't believe in these "theories", in fact I'm rather against them, but I won't go into details.

Both books present qualitative and quantitative research, not "theory", but alright

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

#150

Post by rimantas » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:27 AM UTC

primitivesuave wrote: post #125

obstacle1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

  > Girls simply don't find stupidity that funny

This is gold. Almost as "girls cannot code".