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I knew exactly how she felt

trishkhoo.com

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Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#61

Post by s_baby »

I see plenty of insightful comments here but no one acknowledging the conclusion.

>It’s funny because the evening started out with a lady giving a speech about how the IT industry is alienating women. But for some girls, it feels like women are alienating the girls who want to be in IT.

How many of these articles/talks put the impetus on changing women alienating women from tech? How likely are you to see some twitter post about girls like this acting "not cool" even though it's a widespread problem? Feminist discourse is usually 1 dimensional. More often than not it's only interested in black and white narratives where women are victims and men are perpetrators. In the few cases where other women are shown as the problem they are framed as victims of patriarchal socialization not responsible for their behavior.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#62

Post by _pmf_ »

memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

> because that pretentious image is something we want to overcome

If this is true, you're very subtle about it.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#63

Post by ianstormtaylor »

stared wrote: post #58

I have quite a few female friends who have mostly male friends (just because of being interested in a particular technical field). And, to be honest, I have never got idea why someone _needs_ to have friends mostly of the same gender. Once someone has interest beyond cliche "gossip, fashion, diet & nail painting" or "football, cars, sports, binge drinking", well, then why to lock contacts inside only one's own gender…

Sorry, but you're arguing against no one. No one said she needed to make friends with girls because she's a girl. She clearly _wants_ to become friends with them. And it's unfortunate that she clearly wants to be friends with some people of her own gender, and yet has such a hard time of it because she's alienating the other girls and they're alienating her.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#64

Post by yen223 »

rubyrescue wrote: post #22
noonespecial wrote: post #2

I'm not sure the author quite understood the seeing Star Wars thing was a super low bar fitness test. Once long ago my new wife asked me why geeks always wear tshirts with obscure references that no one gets. I was slightly put out by the question until I figured it out. They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield.

it's the movie equivalent of atoi()

It is the same reason why we insert random programming references into comments :P

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#65

Post by memset »

_pmf_ wrote: post #62
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

> because that pretentious image is something we want to overcome If this is true, you're very subtle about it.

Hah.

Realize that wine is made, literally, by farm boys who spend the year picking and crushing grapes from the field. When you visit a winery you realize how far-removed the winemaking process, which is as down-and-dirty as any other farm work, is from its cultural air.

This is my experience with many wine professionals - people who procure, ship, or teach about wine for a living. There is a valid criticism of sommolier culture (which is only one facet of the industry) of propagating pretentiousness. But perhaps you need that air when selling a $300 bottle of wine, but you want to market yourself as "just a beverage" when selling a $10 bottle.

This reinforces my original point! There's more to $topic than your perception of it. There is more to fashion than "pretty people who are arrogant." There is more to IT than "Star Wars references." There is more to wine than "pretentious people with their cellars."

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#66

Post by asperous »

> "They thought she wanted to build the next Terminator or hack into Government systems, when she just wanted to build self-driving cars."

Maybe she doesn't see how this is similar in terms of amazing, but I would say those other women weren't far off.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#67

Post by InclinedPlane »

noonespecial wrote: post #2

I'm not sure the author quite understood the seeing Star Wars thing was a super low bar fitness test. Once long ago my new wife asked me why geeks always wear tshirts with obscure references that no one gets. I was slightly put out by the question until I figured it out. They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#69

Post by stared »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #63
stared wrote: post #58

I have quite a few female friends who have mostly male friends (just because of being interested in a particular technical field). And, to be honest, I have never got idea why someone _needs_ to have friends mostly of the same gender. Once someone has interest beyond cliche "gossip, fashion, diet & nail painting" or "football, cars, sports, binge drinking", well, then why to lock contacts inside only one's own gender…

Sorry, but you're arguing against no one. No one said she needed to make friends with girls because she's a girl. She clearly _wants_ to become friends with them. And it's unfortunate that she clearly wants to be friends with some people of her own gender, and yet has such a hard time of it because she's alienating the other girls and they're alienating her.

It wasn't an argument, it was a side comment, supporting her approach (similar to one of many of my friends) and to some extent mocking the (culturally implicit) premise that one should align with one's own gender[1], see in e.g. "[...] and how none of the other girls in her class understood anything she was talking about".

Would ever a tall person said "but none of tall people at my high-school can understand my jokes"?

[1] And to some extent supporting also:

"It’s funny because the evening started out with a lady giving a speech about how the IT industry is alienating women. But for some girls, it feels like women are alienating the girls who want to be in IT."

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#70

Post by manish_gill »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #18
bluedino wrote: post #3

She shouldn't feel bad. I've never seen more than a few minutes of Star Wars or Star Trek. Never seen Dr. Who or any of the Monty Python stuff. I've never seen a single Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter movie (or read the books). But I keep telling myself that one day I'll binge through them all online.

Don't force yourself to sit through something you hate just to get an imaginary badge. I can't stand Dr. Who, I'm often baffled by British humor, and LotR is the geek equivalent of having read all of Dostoyevski's novels.

Heh. Even though I like fantasy very much (big Robert Jordan fan), I really can't stand Lord of the Rings. It's just so utterly boring. :(
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