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I code like a girl

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Re: I code like a girl

#151

On the topic of equality in general - As an old man and a father of a 22 year old woman let me tell you what I've observed - women don't need your help and when you act like they need your protection you're no better than someone who treats them as weaklings. It's a fine line and imho the best bet is to just treat them as you would anyone else.

If you're talking protection in the physical sense, for 99% of women you're absolutely wrong.

I'm in the military and there are only a few women I know who would hold their own in a fight against a similarly fit man. I can think of maybe 1 off the top of my head.

Years of evolution made us this way, it can't just be undone by an egalitarian sentiment.

Re: I code like a girl

#152
post #122
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say the theories of biological ineptitude of women are not nonsense and then point to childhood socialization?

It's much easier to make a game about shooting objects, or manipulating objects than about social interactions. That's what most of games were about in 8bit and 16bit times, so boys were interested in them more than girls (because of natural inclination and social norms), so there's more boys than girsl in IT right now. This will change because there's more gaming girls now, and there are other reasons to have comput…

Or, the game development industry was dominated by men at the start, who wanted to play action/violence games because they were socialized to find this fun, and these games socialized younger males.

Natural inclination is unnecessary to the story. The burden of proof is on you to prove that it exists in the first place.

Re: I code like a girl

#153
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should note that black men were referred to as "boy" quite a lot until a few decades ago.

Still going on.

I'm sure; hopefully my meaning got through that it only stopped being so widespread and normal a couple of decades ago.

Re: I code like a girl

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good to know! It's so hard to tell, having only the direct experience of being a single gender in the industry, what is normal and what isn't. I try to stay away from it, but some days, it seems like I'm filtering all my experiences through Medium blog posts about gender inequality and tech-conference-horror-story-of-the-day BS. I might have to go back to front end work if that's really the hot thing everyone'…

Maybe you should stop looking for gender inequality without direct evidence. Crazy thought I know.

The point was that I wasn't actually looking. So many of the articles on HN, and on tech blogs/news sites around the Internet are about gender inequality. As a human being, I can only encounter so much of it before it starts to affect how I view and interpret events around me, without realizing it. "Are they asking me to be a speaker at this conference because I'll provide valuable knowledge to the attendees, or is this a 'token speaker' situation?" It gets to you, after a while, even if you're actively trying not too let it.

My whole point was that that situation is bad, and hearing experiences such as ones from MTF or FTM transgendered individuals in tech can be valuable. I don't see any reason for you to be a jerk about it here.

Re: I code like a girl

#155
post #41
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes people claim that women are biologically, statistically, just not as good/interested as men at programming/technology, and point to current gender balance in tech as evidence of this ("There's a reason there's lots of male programmers, men must be just better!") Remembering some of these women, and the early history like this, is very relevant today to show that that's nonsense.

It's not nonsense. Modern women are statisticaly less interested in programming. That's because boys 20 years ago got c-64 or PC because they wanted to play games, and girls 20 years ago got barbies. Turns out barbie doesn't have the same side effects.

It seems that the decrease in women programmers seems to have started around the point where PC's supplanted mainframes. PC's were regarded as a toy by the established IT departments perhaps. I wonder if there is some correlation? I got a computer TI-994A because I was curious about programming due to those old Radio Shack comic books that showed what computers could do.

Re: I code like a girl

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, did you just call me evil because I said you should treat women equally? Get your head checked.

>.. did you just call me evil.. No, I did not. > Get your head checked. Is this the kind of treatment you were talking about? :D

Are you trolling me? I don't understand what you want. Be straight forward and stop wasting my time.

Re: I code like a girl

#157
post #151

On the topic of equality in general - As an old man and a father of a 22 year old woman let me tell you what I've observed - women don't need your help and when you act like they need your protection you're no better than someone who treats them as weaklings. It's a fine line and imho the best bet is to just treat them as you would anyone else.

If you're talking protection in the physical sense, for 99% of women you're absolutely wrong. I'm in the military and there are only a few women I know who would hold their own in a fight against a similarly fit man. I can think of maybe 1 off the top of my head. Years of evolution made us this way, it can't just be undone by an egalitarian sentiment.

True, there are physical differences that are hard to overcome without help. But there is a lot of help out here in the modern world. Pistols, stun guns, pepper sprays, and other self defense techniques are just an example.

Re: I code like a girl

#158
post #99
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that Ip Man is a popular movie (?) is "punch like a girl" still an insult?

I haven't seen it. One can only assume insults like "[violent act] like a girl" is still used among male youth to horrible effect, encouraging more violence and self-hatred.

As a male youth with very little experience with people in general, I hate people who make me look bad.

Re: I code like a girl

#160
post #152
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much easier to make a game about shooting objects, or manipulating objects than about social interactions. That's what most of games were about in 8bit and 16bit times, so boys were interested in them more than girls (because of natural inclination and social norms), so there's more boys than girsl in IT right now. This will change because there's more gaming girls now, and there are other reasons to have comput…

Or, the game development industry was dominated by men at the start, who wanted to play action/violence games because they were socialized to find this fun, and these games socialized younger males. Natural inclination is unnecessary to the story. The burden of proof is on you to prove that it exists in the first place.

http://fpb.case.edu/smartcenter/docs/SpitCamp/Booth%20et%20a...

> Testosterone-related differences in aggression in the non-delinquent sample were studied as well. None were statistically significant. The only difference manifested was that adolescents with higher testosterone were more likely to respond more vigorously in response to challenges from teachers and peers. The vigorous response finding is consistent with our assertion that testosterone is linked with aggression only when it is part of dominance behavior.

> Using measures that incorporated self, peer and teacher ratings, Tremblay and his colleagues discovered that testosterone levels at the start of puberty were linked to social dominance a year later but not to physical aggression. Dominance was not related to current aggression or aggression over the previous three years. On the other hand, body mass was a predictor of physical

> Although research provides considerable evidence that testosterone is associated with dominant behavior, correlation does not prove causation. If the administration of testosterone was followed by an increase in dominant behavior, we would have a stronger case for asserting a causal relationship. Two experiments support the idea that the link is causal. In one study with a double-blind, randomized, crossover design, young men were given doses of testosterone or a placebo. Subjects were paired with a fictitious subject and told that each member of the pair could, by pushing a button, reduce the cash flowing to the other member. The subject was told that the other individual was reducing the cash that was flowing to the subject. Subjects receiving testosterone rather than the placebo pushed the button significantly more times (Kouri, Lukas, Pope and Oliva 1995). A second study with the same design was conducted with men aged 20 to 50 years (Pope, Kouri and Hudson 2000). This time testosterone was administered over a six-week period. Subjects participated in the same experiment. Results indicated that those who had had the treatment pushed the button many more times. These studies put us in a much stronger position to claim that testosterone stimulates dominant behavior.

That's just one study, but there are a lot more.

And, using common sense, how many cultures do you know, where women play team sports, and men don't? Where girl play war and boys play home?

I'm all for allowing to ignore social roles, I'm not good example of stereotypical men myself, but let's not ignore evidence that's all around us. It would be enormously unlikely, that biological differences between sexes, and behavior differences were just accident.

Of course social influences have big part, but they don't explain everything.

And there's a reason that men made games, and women didn't, when both were present at first in programming. I doubt it's just because of social reasons.

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