Women: Learn to Program This Summer • Hacker News Board

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#31

Post by alexashka » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

dzink wrote: post #4

Spreading this as far and wide as I can. Coding is as critical as literacy for the next 20 years and there are too many programs and teachers that teach it poorly, alienating large segments of the population. Lambda is among the best. I hope they can scale past 40 students for this in the future.

What? The average IQ is 100. Computer science is not a 100 IQ field. Science is not a 100 IQ endeavour.

Coding at 100 IQ level will be automated away very soon the same way anyone can have a facebook account without knowing HTML.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#32

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

zimablue wrote: post #9

ReturnToVoid wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have sadly witnessed a lot of discrimination against white men recently as well. God forbid you happen to be a white man from a third-world country, you'll literally never get a single interview anywhere no matter how good you happen to be.

Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know) but the people who get screwed by this sort of thing are also the white working class. Most employers have some (fairly rational as well as irrational) desire to screen by class, alongside the people of the upper classes knowing how to game the system of education/etc. So when you push women and ethnicities…

Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know)

Being eastern-European myself I can confirm that while the negative stuff applies, the positive doesn't.

But I say let them - I'm honestly curious what the end result of such policies will be.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#33

Post by i_am_proteus » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #3

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally c…

> We use inclusive definitions of “women” and “female” and welcome trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who are female-identified.

If you are interested in the program, it seems like you could identify yourself as female and apply. Especially if there's no in-person interview.

Cynically, if enough [biological males who identify as] men elect to identify as women for this application, the selection team will have some very difficult decisions to make.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#34

Post by manfredo » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

ReturnToVoid wrote: post #6

rosterface wrote: post #3

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally c…

I have sadly witnessed a lot of discrimination against white men recently as well. God forbid you happen to be a white man from a third-world country, you'll literally never get a single interview anywhere no matter how good you happen to be.

I've seen even more against Asian men (not that it makes discrimination again white men any more okay). After all, if we are going to strive for for equal representation - which seems to be the goal - Asian are going to have to go down from 30-40% of many large companies down to a fraction of that. Asians are 14% of California and 5.2% of the US population.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#35

Post by lallysingh » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

pacala wrote: post #26

jakelazaroff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never really valued skills over demographics — it's just much less visible where it benefits a dominant group. Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars [1]. This has held true for over a decade: the average female founders have received less than their average male counterparts. But for some reason, there aren't many people complain…

Never heard of an open and blatant 'women need not apply' in the 20 years I've been in the US. Not in the universities, not in the workplace, not anywhere. Not sure about NFL policies, though there aren't that many 6 foot 250 pounds fit women out there. Pretty sure there is no VC advertising 'we will fund no women' out there, if it were there would be a huge press coverage. And yet, the OP is openly and blatant 'men…

Because men have many other options. If it was just 1 or 2 places saying 'we won't fund women', then those places don't substantially affect womens' ability to get funded. But that isn't the case.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#36

Post by jakelazaroff » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #22

jakelazaroff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never really valued skills over demographics — it's just much less visible where it benefits a dominant group. Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars [1]. This has held true for over a decade: the average female founders have received less than their average male counterparts. But for some reason, there aren't many people complain…

> Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars Stats like this are so useless. Obviously if males make up 95% of the pool they're more likely to have founded some of the unicorns, therefore skewing the average. If one of the 5% of females founded a unicorn I bet they'd have a greater share of VC dollars.

The reason that companies become unicorns is that VCs invest in them at a certain valuation. You have cause and effect reversed. If VCs are underinvesting in female-founded companies, it's entirely expected that fewer of those companies will become unicorns.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#37

Post by mettamage » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

If it's an online programming class, then why not extent the offer to people based outside the US? This US protectionism thing is driving me crazy.

I'll offer my services to Lambda School and/or YC for free if that means I can extent this offer to EU people, provided that my living expenses are covered. I'm in between jobs so I have the perfect schedule for it.

I'm from the EU.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#38

Post by lallysingh » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #3

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally c…

I suspect it'll end when people aren't surprised to hear things like this:

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#39

Post by School-Cotton » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #3

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally c…

Do you live in the US? If so, I think this is a bit exaggerated. There are still a lot of white men from the US at all major tech companies.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#40

Post by yakshaving_jgt » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

I have several female friends who find Affirmative Action campaigns so off-putting, they decide against joining the industry.

One friend recently complained to me that all the AA enthusiasts just want to talk about feminism and women in the workplace, and not about actually writing code. She was incensed because she was invited to a 'Girls Code' meetup, where women would learn about algorithms by modelling their own menstrual cycles[0]. She was (understandably) frustrated, saying that her interests extend beyond what comes out of her genitals.

This is anecdotal, sure, but amongst my social circle, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

I sense a bazillion downvotes coming my way. You may think these opinions I am passing along are incredibly incorrect, but they are the opinions of women.

[0]: https://imgur.com/a/jFLU0C8

EDIT: It took no time at all for the downvotes to arrive, as expected. There is no such thing as the sisterhood. Feminists will immediately cast out any woman who doesn't hold the "right" opinions.