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Girls Who Code

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Re: Girls Who Code

#4

Post by rokhayakebe »

I am a man.

These initiatives will simply not work. Imagine "Men Nurse."

Many women SIMPLY do not code for the same reason many men do not code. Most of us were not exposed to the science as kids, hence step 1 is to make Programming mandatory. Note I say programming and not C.S.. I am an amateur programmer and I can say wit confidence that this is as fundamental as basic arithmetic. Full stop.

I frankly wish they shut down "Girls Who Code" entirely and all the likes. Instead we can put our efforts into teaching everyone to code: "We Code." Because once someone does something as simple as print (2+2)-(3-2) or print $first_name + $last_name or (my favorite) The Website of Me

My name is Joanna. This is my first web page.

, once they do this, there is simply no going back for them.

Re: Girls Who Code

#6

Post by HaloZero »

It sounds like Harvey Mudd's program improves female enrollment but it's just seems like a good idea in general

The quick program for Harvey Mudd seems to be 1) Make the problems more practical in application (ie controlling a robot, modelling a disease) 2) Giving students choices in what problems they are interested in 3) Segmenting students according to skill set, thus putting people who have been programming in another course that will match their pace better and allowing students who are more new to have their own pace.

Re: Girls Who Code

#7

Post by danso »

One of that impresses me, and kind of amuses me, is how PG will talk these issues out, even though the danger of being misquoted or misinterpreted is much higher than the chances of being appreciated, especially for someone in his position. The phrase "God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers?", as a standalone statement, is ripe for ripping apart. But I think in its context, it only expresses his frustration at the problem, which is much, much better than the apathy expressed by others. It's a problem with much more societal and institutional inertia behind it than just VC men looking down on female entrepreneurs, or even tech companies being discriminatory. He's absolutely right to say that the focus should be on early education, and if anyone knows the best way (on a timetable that would satisfy current observers) to implement that, then they should speak up.

In terms of current harmful perceptions that can be stamped out in the short-term...I think the belief that females aren't genetically cut out to be programmers is one. The "world's first computer programmer" was a woman and COBOL, of course, was invented by Grace Hopper. These women were pioneers in early computing at a time when women were still struggling to be recognized as equal citizens. To argue that women can't make it as hackers is like arguing, post-Jackie Robinson, that blacks can't develop professional baseball skills. The lack of women computer scientists and programmers today more likely point to institutional/cultural problems rather than genetic ones.

Re: Girls Who Code

#8

Post by Roboprog »

My daughter doesn't code, but she and another friend of hers do a lot of work to find, get and set up game emulators and related wares.

Motivated to do light "sys admin" work, but not coding, I guess.

Re: Girls Who Code

#9

Post by sbt »

I hope PG doesn't get too frightened by the press from this and stops being his usual honest plainspoken self. We need more people like him trying to portray an accurate map of the territory, rather than being afraid of how quotes may be spun by cheap journalists.

Re: Girls Who Code

#10

Post by athesyn »

> There is a lot of systemic bias in the system against young women taking this kind of direction with their studies and their career.

I understand there is cultural bias, but systemic? There are more women attending and graduating college than men, they're more economically prosperous in their early twenties as well.[1]

[1]http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/young-w...

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