Django Girls one year later • Hacker News Board

Re: Django Girls one year later

#61

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:07 AM UTC

fooballs wrote: post #58

You don't beat sexism by creating a sexist organisation. It's amazing how people think that there are all these barriers to programming for certain groups of people which must be overcome. There aren't. Sit down, grab a computer and a book, and learn to code. If you're good at it, you'll get a job, and people will respect you. If you can't learn to code on your own, you probably don't have the mental skills necessary…

There is a problem with your argument: evidence points to the contrary. As a (very) gentle introduction, here are some facts:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

Re: Django Girls one year later

#62

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:10 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #55

belorn wrote: post #9

In every work environment which has an clear gender imbalance we see the same stories of the minority group being pushed out by the majority group. The minority group feel pressured to be more majority-like to fit in, receive comments like "you are good for a minority person", and feel a social expectancy to be more like the majority group. Those who don't behave correctly report of being silenced and treated in a ve…

In every work environment which has an clear gender imbalance we see the same stories of the minority group being pushed out by the majority group. This isn't true at all. Lots of fields had clear gender imbalances and explicit hostility, and yet the minority gender had little trouble entering. For example, medicine, law, pharmacy, HR, advertising, professor of subjects which don't use math, etc.

That is just completely false.

1. Women had enormous trouble entering those fields (and, in fact, are almost as well represented in the physical sciences). They won their position after great struggles. You'll note that some of those fields where women have had better success (after a long battle) have high governmental regulation and/or high rate of government employment, which makes it easier to allow women in through regulation after a successful political battle. The private sector has always been more conservative and more resistant to social change.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_jud...

2. Women did not use to be so under-represented in software. There's a clear trend of women leaving software, starting in the mid-eighties: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... Women participation in software is on the decline, unlike any other white-collar profession, requiring math or not.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#63

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:13 AM UTC

keypusher wrote: post #57

yummyfajitas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every work environment which has an clear gender imbalance we see the same stories of the minority group being pushed out by the majority group. This isn't true at all. Lots of fields had clear gender imbalances and explicit hostility, and yet the minority gender had little trouble entering. For example, medicine, law, pharmacy, HR, advertising, professor of subjects which don't use math, etc.

Are you sure about that? I think the difference is that the pioneering women who opened the doors of fields such as medicine and law did so over 100 years ago. The minority gender had lots of trouble entering, and up until recent times suffered from many of the same things that women complain about in the programming community.

Software is well past the point that medicine was at in 1915. In fact, computing specifically had lots of women in it's early days - probably more than medicine had at the same time.

Any theory which predicts that math/physics/cs/EE has few women is inherently flawed if it doesn't also predict that medicine/law/advertising have plenty of women.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#64

Post by ZenoArrow » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #46

ZenoArrow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overthinking it. They're doing those things because they're fun things to do. If someone gave a programming workshop and had a games room where you could play arcade games, air hockey, shoot pool and play pinball on your breaks, I certainly wouldn't complain. I'd even like trying yoga and cupcakes!

... which kind of highlights how gender divides, once established, reinforce themselves. This group of women chose cupcakes and yoga; in the past (mostly) male teams I have been on chose laser tag and go karts. Do I like cupcakes? Sure. Do women enjoy laser tag? They kick my butt plenty often. But it makes the workplace less accessible to people who don't like cupcakes or laser tag. Really I wonder if we're just seei…

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. Nobody said these things have to be set in stone, the idea is just to try things and see if you enjoy them.

So it was cupcake tasting this week. You don't like cupcakes? That's fine. Next week it's yoga. Don't like yoga? That's fine. The week after that it's etc...

The way you want to paint it is that you have to like certain things to be 'one of us', the real message is that you can be different and still be 'one of us'. As I said before, you can't be all things to all people. The idea is to make things inclusionary by being fun, and I hope they continue, even if people want to make a point of being offended about eating cupcakes at a programming class.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#65

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:28 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #63

keypusher wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? I think the difference is that the pioneering women who opened the doors of fields such as medicine and law did so over 100 years ago. The minority gender had lots of trouble entering, and up until recent times suffered from many of the same things that women complain about in the programming community.

Software is well past the point that medicine was at in 1915. In fact, computing specifically had lots of women in it's early days - probably more than medicine had at the same time . Any theory which predicts that math/physics/cs/EE has few women is inherently flawed if it doesn't also predict that medicine/law/advertising have plenty of women.

> Any theory which predicts that math/physics/cs/EE has few women is inherently flawed if it doesn't also predict that medicine/law/advertising have plenty of women.

I am not sure where you're going with this, but you can't make such a comparison at a given moment in time. The reason is that struggles usually follow power, and so it is likely that at any point in time, a marginalized group would concentrate its efforts to penetrate positions that imbue power. As the power structure shifts, so does the struggle. You can't equate professions that hold different amounts of power at different times. Certainly up until some decades ago, law and medicine carried much more prestige and influence -- and hence, power -- than math and the physical sciences. In fact, software's gain of prestige correlates quite well with the drop in women participation. It is quite anomalous in that the existence of the field long predated its power. Law and medicine, OTOH, are professions that have been seats of power for almost a millennium.

A model that correlates low female participation with high power -- and later, increased participation after a struggle -- predicts both observations. It is not such a surprising or sophisticated theory; historians have seen this pattern so often that it is almost banal. This pattern is so regular, that it's relatively easy for us to predict the future: fifty years from now, assuming the power wielded by software remains high, women participation will equal men's, and it will be hard for people to believe that that hasn't always been the case. Unfortunately, even though the result of the fight is certain, we still need to fight it. That is the price history exacts from us.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#66

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:29 AM UTC

pron wrote: post #62

yummyfajitas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every work environment which has an clear gender imbalance we see the same stories of the minority group being pushed out by the majority group. This isn't true at all. Lots of fields had clear gender imbalances and explicit hostility, and yet the minority gender had little trouble entering. For example, medicine, law, pharmacy, HR, advertising, professor of subjects which don't use math, etc.

That is just completely false. 1. Women had enormous trouble entering those fields (and, in fact, are almost as well represented in the physical sciences). They won their position after great struggles. You'll note that some of those fields where women have had better success (after a long battle) have high governmental regulation and/or high rate of government employment, which makes it easier to allow women in thro…

What, precisely, is completely false? According to you, women were heavily underrepresented in medicine/law/HR/advertising, but were NOT so underrepresented in computing.

According to belorn, the minority gender will be pushed out by the majority group. Based on what you say above, this effect should be larger in medicine/law/HR/advertising than in software. Hence, belorn's theory fails to predict reality.

Your theory of government employment fails to predict reality as well. Academic sciences also have large gender disparities; physics has very few women, while biology has lots. These gaps pretty clearly mirror the CS/medicine gaps outside academia. Yet government involvement in physics academia is pretty similar to government involvement in bio academia.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#67

Post by anon3_ » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:31 AM UTC

Why not just make your way into take like everyone else?

Why are girls special? Why do they get red carpet treatment?

That's going to give us a workforce of a lot of women who feel entitlement beats merit.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#68

Post by anon3_ » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:38 AM UTC

willyk wrote: post #27

it's awesome to see this progress, thanks for sharing and the awesome work

I guess it's great news for women.

Isn't this going to create bitterness and animosity between genders? Why don't men get a leg up?

What's to keep these from bestowing attitude of entitlement in women? I already hear some of the most vocal women in tech trying to ban the word merit.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#69

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:41 AM UTC

pron wrote: post #65

yummyfajitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is well past the point that medicine was at in 1915. In fact, computing specifically had lots of women in it's early days - probably more than medicine had at the same time . Any theory which predicts that math/physics/cs/EE has few women is inherently flawed if it doesn't also predict that medicine/law/advertising have plenty of women.

> Any theory which predicts that math/physics/cs/EE has few women is inherently flawed if it doesn't also predict that medicine/law/advertising have plenty of women. I am not sure where you're going with this, but you can't make such a comparison at a given moment in time. The reason is that struggles usually follow power, and so it is likely that at any point in time, a marginalized group would concentrate its effor…

Can you state your theory clearly enough that I can directly apply it? I have no idea what you are trying to say. Make sure to include a clear definition of "power", and make sure this definition is clear enough that I can at the very least evaluate "more" and "less" power.

(I.e., I have no idea why you consider academic physics to have more power than academic biology.)

I also have no idea what you mean by "a marginalized group would concentrate its efforts". Are you implying that women don't make individual career choices based on their interest and aptitude, but instead "concentrate [their] efforts" in some sort of collectivist power grab?

That's a bit scary. I always thought women were just people like me, making selfish individual decisions to maximize their money/lifestyle/career enjoyment.

Re: Django Girls one year later

#70

Post by pron » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:41 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #66

pron wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just completely false. 1. Women had enormous trouble entering those fields (and, in fact, are almost as well represented in the physical sciences). They won their position after great struggles. You'll note that some of those fields where women have had better success (after a long battle) have high governmental regulation and/or high rate of government employment, which makes it easier to allow women in thro…

What, precisely, is completely false? According to you, women were heavily underrepresented in medicine/law/HR/advertising, but were NOT so underrepresented in computing. According to belorn, the minority gender will be pushed out by the majority group. Based on what you say above, this effect should be larger in medicine/law/HR/advertising than in software. Hence, belorn's theory fails to predict reality. Your theor…

The observation precisely follows the flow of power. See my other comment.

> Academic sciences also have large gender disparities; physics has very few women, while biology has lots.

Academia is less interesting to begin with because there is little difference in the power held by different fields (certainly between physics and biology today). Participation can therefore depend on many factors (perhaps side-products of some other process) that people have little interest to examine or change. Those differences are no different from the high participation of women relative to men in ballet dancing. It's hard to pinpoint the causes, and there's little reason or urgency to study them because there's little power imbalance involved (there is more funding directed to studying more serious diseases than less serious ones, unless there's some other good reason to study the less harmful ones).