My experiences at a woman's programming workshop • Hacker News Board

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#71

Post by NotMyMorals » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 3:56 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #60

NotMyMorals wrote: post #28

these questions seemed designed to show off his own knowledge, or to challenge the instructor. Yes, Dave was showing off to an audience of women. she asked me a question she giggled and told me she had no idea what the project was about, or what to do. Yes, the woman was acting like a bimbo to elicit male help. Congrats, you now have the grasp of female/male dynamics usually figured out by middle school. I’d never re…

Do you actually compare a desire to get more women into tech with forced castration?!

Do you actually compare a desire to get more women into tech with forced castration?!

Did you actually read that comment as comparing the "desire to get more women into tech" with castration?

You really didn't understand that the castration reference was to a "simple technical fix" for typical male behavior, and that the reference is what is often called "hyperbole?"

You really misunderstood not only what was being compared to castration, but also the tone in which the reference was made?

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#72

Post by vbtemp » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 3:56 PM UTC

Interesting article, overall. Something occurred to me though:

> "Dave expressed his enthusiasm for the material by asking a lot of very technical questions to the instructor. Largely, these questions seemed designed to show off his own knowledge, or to challenge the instructor. In other words, Dave was the jerk at the conference."

This isn't a male-only phenomenon. Whether it's philosophy classes, psychology classes, or other courses with a significant female composition, this type of behavior is not entirely absent among females either (I have distinct memories of this in college). Granted it may be less common or less confrontational, but it exists, and let's also not forget most women will acknowledge that they can be quite vicious toward one another in office settings as well.

Think about the amount of women in law and medicine (I believe they are the majority at this point). Do you think hot-shot male lawyers or med students behave in significantly different ways than hot-shot male hackers? I doubt it. Men are men; I'm sure in the courtroom, at university, or at the medical conferences, or tech workshops, a minority of us men will exhibit this same "jerk" behavior (i.e., challenging the lecturer, asking questions to show off, etc...). In summary, jerk behavior does not sufficiently or completely explain the lack of women in tech. It exists in most if not all professional fields, even ones in which women are coming to dominate (which, hey, I think is great).

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#73

Post by SoftwareMaven » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:02 PM UTC

pauljburke wrote: post #31

Unless I'm misreading this (and I have the mother of all migraines at present so it's possible) weren't both the author of the post and Dave volunteers helping out rather than students? In which case shouldn't whoever was running the session just shut them down since the whole point is to help the people attending to learn rather than intellectual willy waving? I used to be Dave when I was younger (still am if I don'…

Even in the context of "helping", some people have to show they could teach the class. They do this by asking leading questions, pointing out any mistake, no matter how pedantic, and other obnoxious, interruptive actions.

Students quickly recognize the adversarial relationship and, depending on how the teacher responds, either lose confidence in the teacher or tube out the cock fight.

As the teacher, in a short-term environment (like a substitute or a half-day seminar), you have to shut that person down unequivocally. In a longer lasting environment, give that person a chance to teach.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#74

Post by Goladus » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

In one of the classic programming texts (I forget which one), the author says that very few people who learn to program should be programmers, but that he’d like to see more programming done by those of other professions. The workshop would have made him proud, as every student I talked to shared the sentiment with me that they hoped to learn Python in order to do their job more effectively, by learning to collect, sort or process data in new and more efficient ways.

To be fair, that's very nearly Python's optimal niche at the moment. Users can start seeing returns after a very modest investment of time and energy.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#75

Post by NotMyMorals » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #68

NotMyMorals wrote: post #28

these questions seemed designed to show off his own knowledge, or to challenge the instructor. Yes, Dave was showing off to an audience of women. she asked me a question she giggled and told me she had no idea what the project was about, or what to do. Yes, the woman was acting like a bimbo to elicit male help. Congrats, you now have the grasp of female/male dynamics usually figured out by middle school. I’d never re…

Competent men do not 'show of their skills, brag and one-up other men'. Yes, they may be technically competent, but they are socially incompetent, because they never progressed beyond that juvenile behavior. I'd gladly drive them away.

Competent men do not 'show of their skills, brag and one-up other men'.

Yes they most certainly do.

Yes, they may be technically competent, but they are socially incompetent, because they never progressed beyond that juvenile behavior.

Ok, now you have admitted that technically competent men may in fact exhibit those behaviors, so now you're saying they are "socially incompetent." You are wrong in both cases, highly competent men who show off their skills, brag, and dominate other men tend to be very socially competent. In fact, this sort of display is very much a demonstration of social competence.

Obviously, juveniles do this is a different way than adults, but the pattern of behavior is the same. It is also often the case that men who are being shown up will try to "tear down" the dominant male by labelling his behavior "juvenile" or trying to change the nature of the competition to something he's better at.

One might paraphrase: "sure, he's highly competent, adept at showing his skills, and is clearly superior to me at this particular activity. But he's such a show-off!"

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#76

Post by NotMyMorals » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:14 PM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #59

NotMyMorals wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is probably why pwpwp didn't specifically refer to the self-selected women in the class, but made a general point about the industry and the ridiculous attempts to impose a completely artificial 50/50 gender ratio. The comic could have just as easily said "one girl is good at math therefore exactly as many girls as boys are good at math."

While I agree a 50-50 gender ratio seems artificial at the moment, fact of the matter is the tech industry is becoming one of the great sources of power in society (think skynet). I think for the sake of civilization, we should try to involve women as much as we can and aim for the 50-50.

"I think for the sake of civilization, we should try to involve women as much as we can and aim for the 50-50."

I think for the sake of civilization, we should not try to aim for a 50/50 ratio. Your utopia is another person's dystopia. Not all of us share your morality.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#77

Post by scarmig » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

tonyarkles wrote: post #62

andrewcooke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do I feel bad about women achieving stuff in life ? Yes." is there a typo there? at the moment it reads like other people's (women's) successes make you feel bad.

After having re-read it a few times, I don't think there is a typo. That's why he feels "ashamed" about it. I think you've interpreted it correctly.

It's not so weird, either. Ask any high-achieving woman whether she's run into guys who are resentful of her because she's better than them at what they think they do best.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#78

Post by natasham25 » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:25 PM UTC

I've been to the railsbridge woman's workshop, and while I was able to follow the instructions and build a blog in a day, I didn't understand Ruby on Rails and had no idea how I would do the same thing without following the instructions. Knowing how to follow instructions != understanding the material. Too bad the author saw the girl who was confused as a bimbo instead of taking the time to explain the high level stuff to her.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#79

Post by hk_kh » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:26 PM UTC

WayneDB wrote: post #41

hk_kh wrote: post #14

That's why we do not see more women involved with software, and I am not talking about Dave. I am talking about both, the writer and Dave. Why do you think most women stick to managing projects instead of being involved in Free Software? Too much drama. Too much shit to cope with, that involves dicks and egos. In the article we assume that Dave was a jerk (and it probably was). But, see, the author was in a comfortab…

So, are you saying that women can't or aren't willing to deal with drama or cope with shit that involves dicks and egos? Where there's muck, there's brass. Are you saying that women have no brass?

I am saying that women are willing to deal with drama, ego and dicks when there's a motivation to cope with it.

As I see the current status of gender equality in tech, women working on a tech job are protected by their social status.

A female "junior" programmer could easily be harmed by "women do not know how to code", but with time and patience, they can go forward into the company hierarchy, and end in a position where their status protects such opinions.

In the free software world, it's more difficult to move forward in the hierarchy of a project, hence, time and patience gets consumed.

Now, take this with a grain of salt, because there's a big possibility I am wrong and just resorting to topics here.

Re: My experiences at a woman's programming workshop

#80

Post by frugalfirbolg » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 4:26 PM UTC

mrleinad wrote: post #18

jellicle wrote: post #11

That's not a call for single-sex education. That's a call for good teachers who are willing to crack down on the class clown. There's always a class clown, and he always needs to be cracked down upon for the good of the class. This is teaching 101. Sorry you didn't have a good teacher. >Dave was really excited by the class, and, like me and the other volunteers, had a lot of experience with Python. Sounds like Dave w…

> That's a learned technique for getting assistance. It worked on you, didn't it? I was going to point out the same thing. A women playing dumb to get help from a man, is not uncommon at all.

Not from a teaching standpoint, but from within an IT department as a peer and later a manager I've seen plenty of both men and women 'play dumb' to get help, even to the point of trying to slide by without learning the material themselves and always expecting someone else who knows how it works to be around.

The most extreme examples did not last long. Less extreme cases were treated by starting off any request for help with a review of the process and available resources that led the colleague to ask for help from a co-worker. This was done to develop the ability to perform research and empower them to make decisions on their own as long as they had a good basis for it.

Obviously a short training seminar is different, and the expectation is not for the participant to have found the answer on their own, but I believe a short review of their thought process is in order so the instructor can catch any systemic faults in the student's development. That is, don't just tell them what to type, but figure out if they are missing a core competency and perhaps recommend an independent course of study to supplement the seminar.