Women: Learn to Program This Summer • Hacker News Board

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#501

Post by minhaz23 » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

seancoleman wrote: post #233

CydeWeys wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She should definitely send a PR to add herself to fullname.dev then! https://github.com/CydeWeys/fullname.dev

Thanks, I just passed this along to her!

My girlfriend is in an incredibly similar position, shes an embryologist pursuing a CS degree, but it's at a super old traditional school and their tech isn't sexy web dev javascript type tech.

Do you or your girlfriend have any advice for her? A good tutorial or course or book that's been really helpful to your girlfriend and can help mine ship something soon?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#502

Post by salmonellaeater » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 5:55 AM UTC

MagicPropmaker wrote: post #108

There was a lawsuit in 2018. I'm not sure what the outcome was: https://www.thecollegefix.com/women-only-tech-scholarships-m...

The plaintiffs lost.

> Judgment was entered as follows: Judgment entered for FS ISAC Inc and against Allison, Rich ;Hamilton, James

https://unicourt.com/case/ca-sd-allison-vs-fs-isac-inc-86101...

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#503

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #251

DBYCZ wrote: post #246

Anyone who argues that there should be "More women in tech" needs to go visit a medical college. Completely filled with super smart women interested in science. If STEM women found Coding as interesting as they did Medicine (which is arguably more competitive and prestigious), we wouldn't have any shortage of women writing code. There is nothing wrong with either way, just let people do what they like to do.

What's the evidence that women aren't coding because they aren't "interested"? If you want to make that argument, don't you need to go and refute all the anecdotal evidence that women aren't entering tech careers because they don't feel welcome? I cite as evidence the fact that women in med schools have not, in fact, always been well represented and that the same kind of rhetoric about their "interests" was used to e…

Not GP. But I have seen these kind of studies are often suggested:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th...

---

We synthesized evidence from interest inventories over four decades and found large sex differences in vocational interests, with men preferring working with things and women preferring working with people.

---

Engineering can be said to be involved with "things" and "med schools" with people?

Informally we could perhaps translate that to "Just because men like to sit in a cubicle all day and invert binary trees (a small pun on Google's hiring practices https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en) that everyone else, namely women, should enjoy doing same". I mean, they might and many do, but it is not an obvious thing like it is often presented and it should be discussed. Of course, we can then ask where do those interests come from and some will say because of how people are socialized and others will say because of hormones and other biological differences.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#504

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #308

manfredo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the core point. It's not that industries are selective of gender. It's that people are selective of the industry they work in, and on average women select things other than tech. The agency is on the part of people. So the less restrictions there are on gender roles, the more agency people have to select fields based on their own preferences.

No no, I get your point. I'm saying there's a much more obvious hypothesis for why "people are selective of the industry they work in", and you need to refute that instead of circularly insisting on its truth as the basis for your argument. Basically, you're saying "chicks don't like tech", and I'm saying "prove it". And you won't. And then you try to tell me that I'm missing the point because I failed to note that c…

[deleted]

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#505

Post by philonoist » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

iliketosleep wrote: post #498

75dvtwin wrote: post #491

I read the blog-post, but it does not make clear to me why Jessica chose to offer the money to women only. > " Specifically, she can’t build the first version of her product and is forced to find a cofounder who can. Because she can't judge technical ability, she'll often choose the wrong person for the job. And in a startup, if you choose the wrong programmer or cofounder and have to replace them, the delay alone ca…

> As a parent, it is also difficult to explain to my son, why my daughter would qualify for such a generous grant, but he would not... What explanation is there ? There are explanations, but whether they are valid or not is a matter of debate. Here is one possible explanation: Women have faced all kinds of discrimination which has, for the most part, kept them out of the industry. Even if we're not actively discrimin…

That is not enough of a reason. Don't punish me for mistakes done by somebody in the past. Punish me for my mistakes alone.

"Even if we're not actively discriminating against women now, bias still remains in this male-dominated industry."

This rhetoric is just to confuse people. Any non-active discrimination removes the burden on those who are not facing the bias. Period. Getting equality by stepping over other's heads and pushing them down? Sorry, that is not equality. That is oppression. These non-active biases are something women have every right and power to overcome by themselves. They should not be served in platter. They should burden themselves to do so.

"Therefore, it's necessary to do something in order to bring women back in, and we all have to do our part - in some cases this could mean men making way for women."

Its funny how we write "we all have to do our part" only to not see women sacrifice anything in the end. The word "all" is clever way to escape this sexism against men. Also the word "small" downplays the sacrifices of men in the due process and assumes patronizing attitude in deciding the pains behind such sacrifices don't matter for men. If in order to support your livelihood, I have to kill my hunger, my opportunities, my chances, my support to family then you are part of the problem, not me.

"...it's about doing what we can to correct our historic mistakes."

Past is past. History remains and can never be corrected. It is the present that we should correct and see to it that there is no further active discrimination.

I do think women should stop blaming others and put their efforts to the point of testing their limits instead of insulting men but I am slandered with 'victim blaming'. Ha!

These people cannot make the whole world believe their perpetual victimization just so they can steal free affirmative action. Either prove your mettle and talent to get your money or get out.

Studies have shown that women move away from STEM, both in studies and career as countries are more gender egalitarian. Countries with less egalitarian societies have more women in STEM[0].

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/countries-with-l...

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#506

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #303

camelNotation wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind that so many people are still unaware of the gender equality paradox. People constantly bring this up, constantly ask that same question, constantly get the same response. Women self-select into certain fields at higher rates than others, men do the exact same thing. Can we move on now? There is no problem to solve.

> There is no problem to solve. Which is exactly what people said about unrepresented demographics in career XXX, for literally every XXX of the past few centuries in which the representation has since normalized . The example above was medicine, but we can play it with any high-status career you want: law, government, corporate middle management, academics, finance... Back up a hundred years and there were effective…

Could you please stop prosecuting your points with edgy snark on HN? You've done it an awful lot.

I realize it's frustrating when it feels like you're surrounded by people who are wrong and unfriendly (and believe me I know how that feels), but everyone here needs to stick to the site guidelines no matter how wrong other people are or one feels they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#507

Post by dang-pg-dang » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

philonoist wrote: post #505

iliketosleep wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a parent, it is also difficult to explain to my son, why my daughter would qualify for such a generous grant, but he would not... What explanation is there ? There are explanations, but whether they are valid or not is a matter of debate. Here is one possible explanation: Women have faced all kinds of discrimination which has, for the most part, kept them out of the industry. Even if we're not actively discrimin…

That is not enough of a reason. Don't punish me for mistakes done by somebody in the past. Punish me for my mistakes alone. "Even if we're not actively discriminating against women now, bias still remains in this male-dominated industry." This rhetoric is just to confuse people. Any non-active discrimination removes the burden on those who are not facing the bias. Period. Getting equality by stepping over other's hea…

That is not enough of a reason. Don't punish me for mistakes done by somebody in the past. Punish me for my mistakes alone.

Ok. We're going to systematically remove all of the advantages you've had over others due to systematic discrimination. Your error was in not recognizing that you were trampling your fellow humans; but the good news is, when you feel discriminated against now, you'll know that it's a correction. Nothing against you, specifically.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#508

Post by quickthrower2 » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #41

seancoleman wrote: post #28

My girlfriend, a nurse of 10+ years, just started learning to code on her own, built her first (basic) website ( https://www.nataliepeterson.dev ) and is applying to Lambda School already. I sent this to her this morning and she was elated. Programs like this really work.

For whatever reason this website feels so personal. Instant flashbacks to the 2000s. I love it. Hint for picking a random image when clicking on the image: The currently shown image should be excluded from the list of images to draw from. This prevents the problem that sometimes clicks appear to do nothing, although in reality the same image was randomly picked again.

This is what the web would look like if everyone learned to program and got off Facebook. I can only dream!

It's https and 100 speed score on https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=.... I'm guessing this is on something like Netlify, as it's fast and there is HN hug of death.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#509

Post by johnisgood » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

hnxs wrote: post #438

jschwartzi wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain a little more what you mean by this or where the disagreement is? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Thanks!

If you ever make it out to the bay, you’ll see that white men, Asian men, and, to a much lesser extent (though much more represented than everyone other than the first two), Asian women make up the majority of the engineering workforce here.

Which clearly demonstrates that just because you belong to a minority, it does not mean you will be "oppressed" or whatever the current narrative is. There are successful groups of people belonging to a minority, i.e. it is not the fact of belonging to a minority that is the problem, is it?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#510

Post by happppy » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 7:02 AM UTC

People are only learning to program because they saw good money, every other person now a days is just learning to program to get into programming job even though they have 0 interest in programming. Due to all this, CS is very saturated, and there will be one day when every other person will be a programmer, jobs will be few so competition will be high but pays will be less. If you were that interested in programming you would have known it when you are choosing your career paths. You saw money, you came in, nothing else. And what's with this women learn to program, I never saw any Men learn to program. They say it like CS schools do not accept girls when they apply, idiots.