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I code like a girl

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Re: I code like a girl

#91

Post by _bfhp »

ajuc wrote: post #41
rmc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes people claim that women are biologically, statistically, just not as good/interested as men at programming/technology, and point to current gender balance in tech as evidence of this ("There's a reason there's lots of male programmers, men must be just better!") Remembering some of these women, and the early history like this, is very relevant today to show that that's nonsense.

It's not nonsense. Modern women are statisticaly less interested in programming. That's because boys 20 years ago got c-64 or PC because they wanted to play games, and girls 20 years ago got barbies. Turns out barbie doesn't have the same side effects.

You say the theories of biological ineptitude of women are not nonsense and then point to childhood socialization?

Re: I code like a girl

#92

Post by erroneousfunk »

kazinator wrote: post #50

> What is now considered a male-dominated field, was once defined as “women’s work.” Once? It's naive to think that these attitudes do not persist, albeit in somewhat disguised forms, perhaps. At some universities, for instance, engineers regard CS majors as "wimps". Engineering is hard, CS is soft. Moreover, think about how there is an attitude that some "softer" or "easier" programming is lower on the pecking order…

I briefly did front end web design work many many years ago. Now I have a masters in software engineering, two books published in web scraping in Python and Java, and years of experience in back end Java, database architecture, data science, and all that jazz.

The vast majority of the recruiter spam I get, as a female, is front end web development or UI/UX work. I removed all mention of "HTML/CSS" type skills from LinkedIn, but that hasn't stopped it. I'm beginning to suspect that removing my photo from public profiles would probably do more to stop the inappropriate job spam than anything I could actually change in LinkedIn, however...

Re: I code like a girl

#93

Post by MollyR »

_bfhp wrote: post #62
MollyR wrote: post #24

Why can't we just code like professionals ? Sidenote: Disclaimer: I was heavily influenced by my Biology professors. I don't think society evolved in vacuum separate from genetic evolution. So while I don't appreciate insulting people by gender. I do however think there are gender differences. Another person on HN linked me to this documentary, which opened my mind. https://vimeo.com/19707588

Have you read "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine?

Nope. I'll add it to the reading list.

However as I'm usually short on time, I'd prefer to just read the scientific articles for myself.

Do you have any notable scientific articles from the book references to recommend ?

Re: I code like a girl

#94

Post by _bfhp »

ianstallings wrote: post #85
_bfhp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not someone is "act[ing] like [women] need [their] protection" is relative assessment and you haven't even accused anyone of fitting the description.

I reject your new grammatical protocols. RESEND in human format.

I have no idea what you mean here. Again: who are you accusing of paternalism and why?

Re: I code like a girl

#95

Post by danparsonson »

M8 wrote: post #86
danparsonson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does - I doubt anyone truly believes that Steve Jobs personally designed the whole iPhone; also, the Chinese workers are at least in the public consciousness - apart from the Foxconn labour controversies, each unit has 'Made in China' written on it somewhere. If as the article says the ENIAC news reports were along the lines of 'here is a machine that can calculate trajectories, and these are the men who design…

designed != implemented

My wording not theirs, and incidental to the point I was making.

Re: I code like a girl

#96

Post by kazagistar »

facepalm wrote: post #84
rmc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how much of that "lack of interest" is due to the person not finding the thing interesting, or not finding the industry/their peers interesting? If there are sexists in a group, then people who are the target of that sexism are less likely to enjoy that group. As the number of women decreases in a group, then the remaining women experience more sexism. Negative feedback.

Well do you have an answer? To me it seems highly unlikely that all the women have been turned away by sexism. I remember the times when programming and computers where considered extremely unsexy and basically made you an outcast and unlikely to get a girl-friend. Computer kids back then would have been very happy to meet a girl who was interested in computer stuff.

There is a large difference between being treated as a professional equal, and being treated as potential meat by sex starved nerds...

Re: I code like a girl

#97

Post by _bfhp »

MollyR wrote: post #93
_bfhp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine?

Nope. I'll add it to the reading list. However as I'm usually short on time, I'd prefer to just read the scientific articles for myself. Do you have any notable scientific articles from the book references to recommend ?

The book has a Wikipedia page explaining what it is; it is an original scientific work, not a wrapper for other people's articles.

Re: I code like a girl

#98

Post by lorddoig »

minikites wrote: post #28
lorddoig wrote: post #15

Sometimes I get a little happy - maybe even proud - when I read about the achievements of women who pioneered this field (especially the awesome Admiral Hopper.) Then I stop smiling and remind myself that, even in praise, it's not relevant.

Why isn't it relevant?

Because any other approach, even those with the best of intentions, eventually boils down to the supposition that what you've got between your legs is somehow relevant.

And you know what - on an aggregate, societal level - it might actually be: men and women are not the same, and that's OK. But this is a statistical observation that only applies to the population as a whole and is completely invalid at the individual level. If you feel yourself reaching for this knowledge at that level then evidently you don't have enough good information about the individual in front of you - that is the problem you need to fix.

If we took away all the contextual stuff we know about our founding mothers and fathers and referred to them only with asexual codenames like 'Person X', absolutely nothing would change. If one's aim is achieving equality, the only way to truly do that is to strip away all the bullshit: gender - just like hair colour, accent, and anything else you care to name - shouldn't even register. It's a non-thought.

If that's what feminism is about then I'm a feminist; but I'd never actually call myself that because 90% of the feminism I see today is most definitely not like this, it seems instead to be about making gender register in a very big way - and that's just as misguided and self-destructive as misogyny.

Re: I code like a girl

#99

Post by _bfhp »

sthreet wrote: post #89
_bfhp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding doesn't involve as much kinetic and immediate action, and I can't imagine it being infantilized. When it comes to violence, you can be weak, and so "like a girl". "Driving like a woman" I think means to drive naively, like a child, which women have generally been seen as equivalent to for thousands of years. (Edit: not that I agree with any of that, of course; it's how gender is constructed)

Now that Ip Man is a popular movie (?) is "punch like a girl" still an insult?

I haven't seen it. One can only assume insults like "[violent act] like a girl" is still used among male youth to horrible effect, encouraging more violence and self-hatred.

Re: I code like a girl

#100

Post by xenophonf »

amyjess wrote: post #80
xenophonf wrote: post #70

It's a damn shame that ENIAC's programmers and those that followed them get no greater mention in the annals of history than the footnote that "computers before 1945 were women". I had a really good CSSE education, yet until recently, if you asked me to name a notable female computer scientist, Countess Lovelace or Grace Hopper would be the only person to come to mind, and I would be a little hazy on their accomplish…

You can also add a couple more in somewhat more modern times: * Lynn Conway, who co-launched the Mead & Conway revolution that made VLSI feasible for the first time * Sophie Wilson, who developed the ARM architecture

No kidding. I somehow forgot about Radia Perlman, too.
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