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Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

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Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#171

Post by jrogers65 »

kalkin wrote: post #165
jrogers65 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people argue that affirmative action is institutionalized racism.

Many people ... who don't know what institutional racism looks like. (One requirement would probably be that the discriminated-against group actually ends up with worse outcomes. Compare to say, Black people in the criminal justice system.) I mean, seriously, even if you oppose affirmative action, do you really want to say that its advocates are morally equivalent to racial oppressors and make you ashamed of humanity…

Perhaps our definitions of institutional racism differ but I'm going by the dictionary definition:

>Accepted social arrangements that exclude on the basis of race.

Source: http://dictionary.babylon.com/institutional_racism/

As such, affirmative action fits the bill.

Martin Luther King Jr preached that since whites had actively harmed blacks through the practice of slavery, they should do something special to fix it. I agree with that. However, the whites who are coming of age at this point in time have done nothing of the sort - why should they have to apologise for the actions of their predecessors? Why should a young white woman be punished for things that happened before she was even born? Is she responsible for the actions of all the whites who have ever lived just because she is also white? Do you really think that MLK was talking about future generations who are disconnected from those actions or the people who were right in front of him and still actively encouraging prejudice and racism back in those days? My personal opinion is that if someone participated in those practices, they should make good on them, say sorry, and help the person up, which includes paying what's owed and making room for them.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#172

Post by thisone »

talmir wrote: post #112
talmir wrote: post #106

It is a nice article. Interesting read for me as a male programmer. But this line kinda caught my eye under the "Gender-advantage" headline: "If a male and a female developer with a similar skill level apply for a job, I bet that in 99.9% of the cases the girl will get the job." This is a problem.

After reading all of this again, it strikes me that she works with a LOT of sexually frustrated nerds. She says she has to be careful not using her appearant super power of girlyness too much to manipulate the nerds and such stuff. Is this seriously the reality somewhere, that coders are 99% sexually frustrated super nerds? I always considered that to be a old stereotype :P

I've seen it happen (female myself), though not to my advantage, that I know of.

I've had bugs sent to me for another woman's code, time and again, without formal bug reports for them.

Double edged sword: they know I can fix it, and generally quickly, but it looks like performance is being swept under the rug.

And I do put in bug reports for them once they get to me. Damned if I'm going to have the work unaccounted for.

edit: should probably mention that when she was hired, I was told she would look good at conferences.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#173

Post by dgabriel »

bonzoesc wrote: post #26
nickporter wrote: post #5

Why is it that people group IT and software development together? To me, they are two completely different fields. For example, I see an IT person as a mail server administrator in a large company, and a developer as the person who would write the mail server software. I'm not saying that an IT professional never writes code, or a developer won't ever touch a Nginx config file. I just mean they are two different type…

DevOps changed that. At my first few software engineering jobs, if I didn't write any config files, they wouldn't have got written.

Agreed! I've worked at mostly start-ups, and I have yet to work at a start-up that didn't require us all to be DevOps.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#174

Post by bobbydavid »

michaelochurch wrote: post #113

I'll make a controversial observation, but it's worthy of discussion. If you're a woman of average or better looks, you have one under-spoken superpower. Namely, how you interact with other men will have a huge effect on their social status. I'm not talking about overt flirtation (don't do it) or office relationships (avoid, avoid, avoid). I'm talking about more subtle stuff, like who a woman smiles at, who she initi…

Yipe! I hope this is hypothetical, and we're not getting a glimpse into how you (would?) act as a manager.

But even in my most pragmatic, cynical mindset, remove the gender from this entirely. Beautiful people get ahead, regardless of gender. For instance:

Here is another hypothetical anecdote to counter yours: a handsome, sharp 23-yo man walks in to his manager's office asking for more, and the manager sees a potential go-getter. A beautiful 23-yo woman walks into her manager's office asking for more, and the manager is influenced by his subconscious belief that all attractive women are stupid.

Or how about a 23-yo person (say, Chris), at a start-up that gets a raise because that person creates a positive work atmosphere by being friendly and fostering coworker interaction -- even if that person is not the strongest coder, they may be bringing more value to the team. Maybe everyone else agrees with this raise!, because at one time or another, Chris made them feel "included" in some way. The only person who disagrees is Chris' cubicle mate: a cynical lone-wolf type who spurns others' efforts to be inclusive, and watches from a distance as the rest of the office builds inter-office relationships. Months later, if given a pulpit, that lone dissenter may make some statement like "Chris was given a raise due to petty office politics despite being a mediocre coder," and maybe people hearing this who weren't there won't know how truly valuable Chris was.

But enough hypotheticals. I'm worried that they aren't productive and may be needlessly inflammatory.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#175

Post by makmanalp »

enraged_camel wrote: post #46
borplk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the whole nerd thing is a completely western (mostly American) thing. I have a very different background and we don't even have a word for "nerd". The absolute closest synonym you can find is "really smart" which is positive, and a negative one would be "bookworm". And these western stereotypes are absolutely non-existent. If you ask people in the streets to tell you general traits about 'the nerds' they won…

I don't buy that it's completely western. I was born and raised in Turkey, and the term for nerd there is "inek" which translates to "cow". The idea is that the person spends most of their time with their head buried in books, much like cows spend a lot of time with their heads buried in grass. Definitely not a positive term.

I'd say that "inek" firmly lies within what others would call "bookworm", having been called that. Maybe even implies a lot about schoolwork but not about much else. It implies that you don't have a personal life, because it is spent with schoolwork.

Nerd, on the other hand, conjures up a whole subculture that is quite different. The nerd not only is naturally good at schoolwork, but also has a personal life, but chooses to fill it with abnormal curiosa: Sci-fi, larping, reading, learning, etc.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#176

Post by belorn »

rmc wrote: post #107
belorn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course one can assume a sexist intention behind the remark. My question is why? Is it simply because she is a woman and thus we should assume that anything anyone say to her is sexist? Are we really that far gone, and if so, how are we ever going to get work to become a gender neutral environment? Assuming bad faith is not a road to take.

I didn't say "anything anyone says to her sexist", I said "assuming women can't code and hence must be a designer is sexist".

But the comment does not say "you must not be a developer". If the context had included a "the guy in front of me, also a new hire, was greeted as "so...you the new developer", then yes we would have something that might be sexism here.

But we do not have that kind of context. We only have a assumed intention on what the person meant by it. If we do such assumptions, we assume bad faith.

It could be that they hired a new web developer, also called web designers by many, or designers as short. If a back-end or sysadmin meet someone who is working on the front end, or even on a API structure, its fully plausible to call them "designers", be them male, female, or alien.

Simply put, the comment without any additional context to vilify the speaker, is not sexism. With some context, it might be, but in many others, it is not. Assuming good faith is to default at those context that do not mean sexism.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#177

Post by timje »

jrogers65 wrote: post #129
rmc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder Yes, it is accurate to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say that, but is it right and moral and nice to say it? Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us men to presum…

I think that the point the guy is trying to make is that there is nothing sexist about this. If I saw a new guy at work with a beard, jumbo sized cup of coffee, glasses sitting in front of a dual monitor setup, I would assume that he is a programmer. Does that make me sexist against men? Or prejudiced against people with beards or coffee drinkers? There's an old saying which appears to have been lost somewhere along…

I disagree, I think this is sexist -> just as if I knew that I lived in an area where a certain race commits more crime, it would be racist of me to cross the street if I saw a person of that race coming. If you assume a woman in your office is a secretary or a designer rather than a coder, that is a sexist assumption regardless of your fine knowledge of statistics.

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#178

Post by [deleted] »

jrogers65 wrote: post #129
rmc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder Yes, it is accurate to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say that, but is it right and moral and nice to say it? Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us men to presum…

I think that the point the guy is trying to make is that there is nothing sexist about this. If I saw a new guy at work with a beard, jumbo sized cup of coffee, glasses sitting in front of a dual monitor setup, I would assume that he is a programmer. Does that make me sexist against men? Or prejudiced against people with beards or coffee drinkers? There's an old saying which appears to have been lost somewhere along…

[deleted]

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#179

Post by [deleted] »

jrogers65 wrote: post #129
rmc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder Yes, it is accurate to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say that, but is it right and moral and nice to say it? Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us men to presum…

I think that the point the guy is trying to make is that there is nothing sexist about this. If I saw a new guy at work with a beard, jumbo sized cup of coffee, glasses sitting in front of a dual monitor setup, I would assume that he is a programmer. Does that make me sexist against men? Or prejudiced against people with beards or coffee drinkers? There's an old saying which appears to have been lost somewhere along…

[deleted]

Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech

#180

Post by eliza1wright »

michaelochurch wrote: post #113

I'll make a controversial observation, but it's worthy of discussion. If you're a woman of average or better looks, you have one under-spoken superpower. Namely, how you interact with other men will have a huge effect on their social status. I'm not talking about overt flirtation (don't do it) or office relationships (avoid, avoid, avoid). I'm talking about more subtle stuff, like who a woman smiles at, who she initi…

I think your theory hinges on the idea that most, if not all, of the players in this scenario are single. I work in a start-up environment with a bunch of men, but most of them are married or in a committed relationship. For what it's worth, I'm engaged. The whole "mysterious feminine influence" thing that you're talking about tends to disappear when people don't see you as a potential romantic/flirting partner. I think I'm seen as off-limits, especially because I try not to flirt with the guys in the office. At that point, it doesn't matter how attractive or competent I am. I'm seen as just another member of the team, and probably subconsciously devalued because of my gender.
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