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Women: Learn to Program This Summer

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Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#91

Post by SolaceQuantum »

commandlinefan wrote: post #56
nck4222 wrote: post #50

I'm trying to figure out on what side of the debate I fall on this one. On the one hand, women have obviously been disadvantaged in many ways, for many years, which is wrong. The gender disparity in software development is well documented, and should be fixed. No one should be discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. On the other hand, a for-profit company deciding to offer free services…

> discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. Is there any evidence that this is happening, though? I've never seen anybody, even anecdotally claim "I'm a woman (who is qualified) and I've been unable to find employment". Mostly what I see is people trying to work backwards and say, "if group X makes up Y% of the population and only Z% of programmers, that in itself must be evidence of discr…

Hi I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in engineering be denied opportunities for internships because the employer only wanted to hire pretty girls- a standard not extended to men.

I can anecdotally confirm that I've witnessed women in software engineering be discouraged from learning software engineering at the undergraduate level, often from TAs/Professors.

I can also point to other reported anecdotes, such as the big Riot Games article, several blogs/tweets confirming the article, the Uber NYT article, etc.

The literal quote 'unable to find employment' does not coincide with the quoted portion 'discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied'. Employment is one of the last opportunities that can be denied or discouraged towards women- we have a wealth of educational, internship, volunteering, etc. opportunities that can serve to winnow the pipeline of appropriate female candidates before discussing employment.

Note: I'm not arguing that this is universal to all women in the engineering field, merely providing some response to "I have never even heard of this phenomenon anecdotally".

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#92

Post by Pfhreak »

andonisus wrote: post #86
rubicon33 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gender disparity in software development is well documented, and should be fixed. No one should be discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. I can tell you why. In part, it's explicit sexism and goal keeping from men, sure. But a far bigger reason there are less women in tech? Step into any engineering course at a 4 year university. Come back and tell me how many women where in your…

What if the underlying reason is that women, as a whole, are less interested in Science/Engineering than men are?

We'd know that once we level the playing field?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#93

Post by krapp »

rubicon33 wrote: post #54
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #43

There will be benefits to this program for those who participate, and I wholly wish those women who have the opportunity to participate the best of luck. However, I also worry about the motives behind the program. A huge part of feminism is a push towards gender equality[1]. Discriminating against half of the population while aiming for equality is an odd way to behave. I know the blog post did not mention gender equ…

I don't understand why you're getting down voted for this comment. Isn't the goal equal opportunity? Providing artificial silo'd environments seems at odds to the goal of an unbiased, fair workplace. But I guess I'll just get down voted too.

The premise here is that opportunity wasn't equal to begin with. To accept this premise, you have to also accept the premise that societal restrictions on the roles permitted to women, culturally imposed limits on womens' ability to gain power and authority (the "glass ceiling") and persistent beliefs about women being intellectually inferior to men in regards to certain fields, would lead to a status quo not of meritocracy or equality but prejudice against women in an otherwise 'unbiased' system.

And so, to further the goal of equal opportunity, one must balance an already unbalanced set of scales. Not to do so is merely to accept its bias as the status quo.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#94

Post by lawn »

grondilu wrote: post #55

Isn't programming a skill that can be learned alone in a fairly straightforward manner? I mean, most programming languages have extensive documentation, tutorials and so on (at least FOSS dynamical languages like Python, Rust, Perl...). From my personal experience and what I can guess about hackers I've talked to for instance on IRC, that's how most guys learned it : the web is full of resources for whoever wants to…

The problem for many people isn't the lack of material.

It's the difficulty of keeping yourself motivated and do what you need to do. Making a commitment, such as joining a class or education, is massively helpful.

> I would argue that maybe those women don't have the intrinsic motivation to do so and trying to force it upon them may be a gross waste of time and resources.

It may come as a shock but most people don't work with their ultimate passion. And often even if you start working with your passion you'll have to deal with the ugly sides and you might lose the passion. Sometimes a job is just a job.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#95

Post by jakelazaroff »

ng12 wrote: post #85
jakelazaroff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not talking about cause and effect, I'm talking about a lazy misapplication of statistics to bolster a talking point.

How can you separate them? Lack of female-founded unicorns is a direct consequence of underinvestment in female-founded companies.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#96

Post by gridlockd »

> We use inclusive definitions of “women” and “female” and welcome trans women, ...

Cool!

> ...genderqueer women...

I'm not sure what that means, but...

> ...and non-binary people who are female-identified.

Okay, what? Isn't the point of non-binary to not to be in the binary of man/woman? Can I identify as male, female and non-binary? Female and non-binary or male and non-binary? Male, female, female and non-binary?

The first programming task for these students should be designing the UI widget that appropriately records the "gender preference" of a user in 2019.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#97

Post by nck4222 »

r_smart wrote: post #79
nck4222 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be overt, or even knowingly done. Children are frequently subtly pushed towards different careers because of their gender, many times by their devoted parents. It's a societal problem. EDIT: Here's one paper that talks about how "widely shared cultural beliefs about gender" affect early decisions people make wrt to their careers https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/pu... "The r…

My GF demonstrated an aptitude for STEM at an early age. She received an enormous amount of pressure to continue down that track despite not being interested in it as a career. Your claim may have been true at one time, but I don't think it has been for awhile now. *Edit: In response to your paper: It looks like it's a research paper, not a study, written almost 20 years ago, referencing material that was ~10 years o…

I mean I'm not arguing that all women are discouraged from STEM, and I agree attitudes are changing, which is a good thing.

I wouldn't say that the problem is solved and it doesn't happen anymore though. I provided one study above, feel free to look up more, there are plenty. Something like 80% of STEM jobs are still held by men, and obviously that's not totally a result of discouragement, but seems likely to me that part of it is.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#98

Post by navigatesol »

fzeroracer wrote: post #47
i_am_proteus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 te…

This is a great way to get a company to instantly reject you at the interview step if they have one or fired shortly after being hired. Because, you know, most companies look up the profile of candidates on LinkedIn, social media etc. Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly.

>Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly.

In the current cultural zeitgeist it'd be unimaginable to see someone get fired because they didn't conform to someone's rules of "transgender enough" based on their social media profile.

This is both the beauty and the irony of said zeitgeist; make all the rules you want, can't stop someone from playing.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#99

Post by colpabar »

ajiang wrote: post #58

EDIT: To clarify that the money is going directly to private individuals, as per Austen. Incredible, thanks for putting your money where your values are @jl. As for the numerous comments in this post around reverse sexism / reverse discrimination: 1. This is a private individual giving personal capital to other private individuals, supporting a personal cause. It is hard to both claim principles of free market and ra…

What do 'reverse sexism' and 'reverse discrimination' mean?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#100

Post by slavik81 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #68
grondilu wrote: post #55

Isn't programming a skill that can be learned alone in a fairly straightforward manner? I mean, most programming languages have extensive documentation, tutorials and so on (at least FOSS dynamical languages like Python, Rust, Perl...). From my personal experience and what I can guess about hackers I've talked to for instance on IRC, that's how most guys learned it : the web is full of resources for whoever wants to…

> Isn't programming a skill that can be learned alone in a fairly straightforward manner? No? Stuff like pointers, for loops, threads, interface design, data structures, idempotency, source control, working on a linux command line, etc. all present reasonably challenging roadblocks for a burgeoning developer, and I think many of us benefited from having someone around to help walk us through this the first time.

I didn't really start programming until I took an intro to programming class in university. I had been taught programming languages multiple times before, but that was the first time anyone explained the underlying systems the language was built upon. It was the first time I felt like I understood what I was doing.

A good instructor will also guide you to good learning materials. There's lots of terrible books out there, but I found good books through my classes. Though, it's probably easier to find learning materials today than when I began.

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