8 ms·

Ask YCNews: Any lady hackers using the site?

24 points by pchristensen 19y ago

I just realized that I assume all of the users here are guys. I sure hope I'm wrong. Any ladies want to speak up? While girls are few in number in CS, they usually have valuable insights.

ivan 19y ago
Donna, http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=donna http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=donna but she disappeared several months ago :) I assume she changed her nickname not to be abused by nice looking hackers using this site. I think the problem is that PG doesn't allow us to publish our photos, so your question could be inspiring for him :) YC.news => Hacker.news => YC.Hacker.Dating.news
- albertcardona 19y ago
  Why talking about women needs to bring along dating? No wonder women hide away.
  - imsteve 19y ago
    I believe the answer lies somewhere in our DNA. Please direct your complaints to Mr. Darwin.
    - reitzensteinm 19y ago
      Hey, don't shoot the messenger.
      - nraynaud 19y ago
        Why not ? that's totally counterproductive, but so distressing :)
    - curi 19y ago
      I get it now. Darwin designed our DNA. Intelligent design, and Darwinism, are both right.
      - daniel-cussen 19y ago
        ...I'm kind of taken aback by how clever that is. I wish I could upvote that many times.
huherto 19y ago
Where I work there are like 25 guys and only one girl(She is super smart and pretty). We have been trying to hire girls but we can't find any. For some reason they don't want to be programmers. That is very unfortunate.
- mrtron 19y ago
  I feel badly for her, for you just mentioned her attractiveness when it has no relevance. Perhaps when we (being the male gender we) start considering females' intelligence as the _only_ factor and not half of the equation things will change. Out of the 26 coworkers, you mentioned the physical attributes of the one female. Sorry to pick on your one quick post, but it is just very representative of our society's lingering gender gap.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    I think it has some relevance, because it shows that being in IT does not imply unattractiveness. Talk about unattractiveness of male geeks is quite common, too. Also, I think it would be nonsense to deny our human attributes. Men are interested in women's looks, and vice versa. Actually, isn't it another complaint of successful women that to be successful, they had to become like men (a ka Margaret Thatcher)? So if a successful women is still attractive, it might be a good role model after all.
    - curi 19y ago
      It isn't "human" it is "cultural". Still shouldn't deny it, but it can and will change. (And has changed a lot already!)
      - Tichy 19y ago
        So you mean in other cultures looks don't matter? Maybe if the parents set up the marriages? Do you have any references?
        19y ago
daniel-cussen 19y ago
Not that I know of. I think there's a lot of stigma on both sides. There may be stigma against women in chat rooms like this one, and women may have a stigma against becoming hackers. These are just hypotheses, of course, and by no means do they apply to all hackers or all women. They're just general trends I've heard cited. That being said, the ratio of girl haxxors to guy haxxors in my dorm seems to be getting better. It's like 1:4 where it used to be 1:7. Another problem is that hacking is not very glamorous.
- pchristensen 19y ago
  1:4!!! That's got to be a record. When I was in school, there were 4 girls in my entire year of CS. They were all TAs, and you know what? They were the best TAs.
- pius 19y ago
  One thing I really liked about MIT was that there were plenty of women studying computer science. It seemed as if the ratio were around 50/50.
  - aston 19y ago
    50/50 for MIT at large. Nowhere near that in Course VI, though.
- manvsmachine 19y ago
  It's definitely a bit of a mental block. A lot of girls who would love to be able to do things requiring hacking skills, but they don't want to actually have to learn the foundational stuff, i.e, Data Structures/systems programming. They want to be able to jump from the intro-level courses straight to bioinformatics or graphics/multimedia courses, not because they think it's too hard, but because they almost feel like it's going to do something to them as a person. "Yesterday, I gave a talk to our new cohort of Computational Media undergraduates about the CS classes that they will be taking. One student asked me about 3-D modeling, and I told him about our computer graphics classes. Then a young lady asked me a question that bowled me over, "If we don't take computer graphics and we get a Computational Media degree, is all that we can do is become programmers?" The last word just dripped with disdain, as if that was a mid-level in Dante's vision of hell." --Mark Guzdial
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
timr 19y ago
I recently had an intriguing conversation with a female friend who is starting a CS program, after spending years in another field. She's about as used to "geek culture" as a person can get, but even she finds the people in CS to be overwhelming. Her take? CS departments need to focus a bit less effort on attracting women (a task which fundamentally defines them as different), and a bit more effort on repelling socially retarded men (who really are different). I can't say that I disagree. CS is the last refuge for some really damaged people; I get sick of it too. IMO, CS101 should be a mandatory class on hygiene and social skills for people who already know how to program.
- amichail 19y ago
  So instead of having highly rewarding and productive computing careers, these socially retarded men should do what instead? Become criminals perhaps?
  - timr 19y ago
    I don't accept your premise. Very few people have highly rewarding and productive careers when they are socially retarded. Inversely, a little social etiquette never hurt anyone. The culture of computer science is currently unique, in that it gives the seed of antisocial behavior a fertile place to take root. That doesn't mean that antisocial behavior should be encouraged or accepted.
    - amichail 19y ago
      Maybe there's a good reason why so many computer programmers are antisocial. Maybe it takes an antisocial person to devote the enormous amounts of time and effort required to write non-trivial programs. Also, computer technology may make most people anti-social. Consider for example flamewars that would never take place off-line.
      - timr 19y ago
        I don't know if I buy that, either...is jwz anti-social? pmarca? pg? Joel (of on-software fame)? My personal experience has been that the best programmers have a large personality overlap with the best visual artists and musicians. That's not necessarily well-adjusted (crazy intensity and burnout often go along for the ride), but it's not anti-social either...certainly, you can't very well argue that artistic careers are unappealing to women! In any case, my gut instinct is that computer programmers tend to be anti-social, because anti-social people are drawn to careers that involve minimal human interaction. The computer gives anti-social tendencies room to grow, but I don't think it causes the problem.
DaniFong 19y ago
Hi there. I use the site pretty religiously. I hope that my comments are insightful. I know a few girl hackers. They do mention a lot of what might be called 'social friction'. In some cases, they stay around through undergrad because computers are a really magical, flexible medium. The good news is that we like a lot of hackers and scientists and technical people. They're interesting. Other fields have their human debris, too. Lawyers have frat-boys. Lit-majors have bullshitters. But rarely do other fields have people getting together to make things, and that's just a lot of fun. :-)
- pchristensen 19y ago
  Gentlemen, we have our first lady to speak up! Let's take a sample and see if the "insightful comments" thing holds up: "I read somewhere that the blockbuster title 'Gears of War' had only about half a million lines of C++ code" "We're starting a startup in computer vision. We're deploying across the web, but that's just because it's the cheapest distribution mechanism." "I asked: in principle, if these black-boxes handled all the trades, where would the decision to trade or not come from." "I asked if it was moral to play such a risky game with the economy." "my most productive periods (in the sense of producing something) have all involved some kind of death march" "The concept of sending electricity wirelessly has been imagined, but nobody had come up with a decent way to avoid the losses except by using an actively controlled beam method." All of these were in the last 3 weeks. I'd say they definitely qualify as insightful. Glad to have you, DaniFong.
- amichail 19y ago
  I have a lot of respect for women who like the idea of building novel applications but don't want to get their hands dirty with the programming/computer science involved. This is kind of like architects who want to design buildings but would rather leave implementation details to engineers. That's the way it should be.
  - DaniFong 19y ago
    Well, that's the way it often is. But I hesitate to agree that it's the way it should be. I try not to shy away from implementation myself, and I think there's a lot of benefit to exposing oneself to details. To quote PG: "In principle you could make any mark in any medium; in practice the medium steers you. And if you're no longer doing the work yourself, you stop learning from this." I speak for myself, but this true almost everywhere. Small changes in the resistance of medium, and in the convenience of doing one thing or another, often lead to drastic differences in the sort of things people create. I heard that someone actually managed to play 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on Trombone. I'm not sure I can impress upon you how difficult that sounds -- there are like 5 notes per second, each requiring precise intonation, and it never lets up long enough for the poor soul playing it to breath. Apparently, it can be done. But I'm almost certain nothing of the sort would have been composed on it. Programs are often the same way. Sometimes, the idea doesn't occur to you until you understand how to implement it. Or, as the case may be, until you actually implement it. I read that Scheme was in part an attempt to implement an Actor model. When they implemented lexical closures and actors, they discovered that the implementations were the same!
tlrobinson 19y ago
OMG a woman on the internet. Pix plzzz!!!
- tlrobinson 19y ago
  p.s. before you mod me down: http://xkcd.com/322/ http://xkcd.com/322/
- e1ven 19y ago
  Unfortunately, repeating an ill meme, particularly in a way that seems as if you are falling into the trap isn't particularly ironic or clever, it's just socially awkward. I understand what you're going for, but it doesn't accomplish your goal, and it just continues a stereotype rather than working to create an environment that's conducive for discussion.
  - tlrobinson 19y ago
    I understand that, and I normally am not the kind of person to say such things, but I thought it was rather meta-ironic, considering the xkcd comic... edit: unless, of course, you were trying to be meta-ironic too...
    - rin 19y ago
      The problem is, these ironies and meta-ironies are just as old, trite, tiring, and grating as the same thing meant seriously. Believe me, meta-irony on this topic has been done before, many times, and not only based on the irony of an xkcd comic. It might be the first time you do this, and you think it's funny, clever, and 'meta-ironic' (oooh). I suppose it's somewhat like lists of jokes that people forward around: funny the first few times, and "I'm going to auto-killfile this" after a few years of hearing the same ones.
sundae1888 19y ago
Does it really matter? (See if you can infer my gender from this question alone.) There are 5 females in my company's R&D, comparing to about 30 males. That was way better than at my previous employer, where I was the only female in the 25-person team.
- huherto 19y ago
  I think it matters. A more diverse group of people will make the conversations more interesting. The same way that it is good to have hackers from many countries.
- manvsmachine 19y ago
  I'd say it does. Maybe not specifically to yc, but overall for the industry. Not that the prevalence of women is directly proportional to a given field's success, but it's like money: having more than someone else doesn't mean you're better, but if you don't have any at all, you're probably fucking up somewhere.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    It would definitely be more motivating to go to work every day if there were some female colleagues.
- imsteve 19y ago
  This topic matters because it is a natural extension of those, quite thought stimulating, lists of traits of the best programmers. Lots of stereotypes are held merely for lack of data. Lets put more data on the table.
daniel-cussen 19y ago
This subject is a huge can of worms. On the one hand you'll have members of a largely-male audience say that there should be more women in CS and that the industry is extremely sexist. They'll say women are wonderful. Then you have the people who agree and say women are great and sexually attractive. You have the people who complains at this objectification and say that it's people like these that are responsible for gross gender inequalities. Then you have the people who point at IQ research. Then you have people that question the validity and conclusions of the research. You then have extreme self-righteousness. Then there's blatant sexism. Then someone mentions Carla Fiorina as a good example, but someone says she didn't deserve her success. You get people trying really hard to put a finger on why they think men are better hackers without sounding like bigots. They can lie on either sides of the spectrum of intellectual honesty. When scientific studies are mentioned, they can be rationalizations of bigotry or attempts at honesty and open-mindedness. I hope I didn't overrepresent the point of view of any of the many sides of the argument. I've looked over this post and alternated the order of the points of view in the sentences and paragraphs above. However, I feel really weird about this discussion. I suspect that no matter how hard I try to talk about these issues without taking a stand with regard to politically incorrect subjects, I'm going to look like an asshole if I don't ultimately rule in favor of the politically correct viewpoint. But if you go so far as lying about your viewpoints in order to look politically correct, you're a bullshitter, and no less of a bigot. On the other hand, being too concerned about the dangers of political correctness might actually make me more prejudiced. What worries me is that there might not even be a safe zone between being a bullshitter and being a bigot. It might be impossible to add to this topic without being either a bullshitter, a bigot, or a little of both. But then, every person with an opinion on the subject would be an asshole in some shape or form, and that doesn't seem reasonable. There should be a safe zone. Of course, if you believed every politically correct statement, and you expressed those views, you'd be fine. But how common is this? Who can say they're totally unbiased? Should we only let he (or she) who is without sin cast the first stone? If we did things this way, though, guilty parties would avoid getting a stoning they may deserve. It's a can of worms. There's not a lot you can say without someone going ad hominem on you. It is not a bad idea to put this kind of question on Hacker News; it is supposed to be an open forum about what things interesting to hackers. But because it is an open forum, try not to wantonly go around chastising other posters. As a reader, you should know what you're in for when you choose to read this link. People can say whatever they want, and they will. Sometimes they'll be too politically correct, sometimes they won't be politically correct enough. On top of that, there's the bullshit from both sides. You might end up reading something you'll find personally hurtful. But then, this is a forum. People have been asked not to be mean, and for the most part they'll try not to be. But if you don't want to risk being hurt, don't go into the forum. I didn't write this very well. I apologize. I wound up being pedantic, too. And I said some things that might cost me. But I can't keep rewriting this and make semantic barricades that I can later hide behind. I can't censor myself based on what future employers and people like that might think when they google me.
yters 19y ago
What is it about geeks that turns women off? Is it merely the social maladjustment? We males tend to adjust our behaviors based on what women find sexy, which is partially why universities used to be male only. Geekiness correlates with good intellectual work, but as mentioned, women don't like it. Which also makes me think that the key to guiding society is by defining what women find sexy.
- zasz 19y ago
  I like geeks. I'm not a very good geek myself, but I can mostly follow the technical discussions, with lots of Googling. I can't speak for other women, but I hate it when people exhibit a lack of social skills, and it especially infuriates me when they're not funny or overly shy. Aside from confidence, health, social skills, and ability to entertain and amuse, I think the only thing society can define about male sexiness is the prestige of his financial prospects. Perhaps some other woman will have more input.
  - yters 19y ago
    I'd say the definition of sexiness has changed. Now "sexy" is dashing, promiscuous, childmen. The qualities essential for good families are not considered very sexy, whereas they used to be moreso.
rin 19y ago
I'm yet another one, though I don't spend much time on yc; I spend more time on reddit and slashdot (not under this name), and actual coding.
albertcardona 19y ago
Should tell you a lot about the kind of incorrect attention that women get in this site (and anywhere else in the internet, including chat rooms) the fact that nearly no women get an obvious female nickname. Just imagine what would happen if you create a user whose name was "Laura". Try it.
codewhisperer 19y ago
Speaking as a member of the homogametic sex, I've been lurking on news.ycomb for a few months now. About the time I was considering speaking up on an algorithms topic, this appeared as a leading link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99255. The comments included such insights as "where can I get me some of that" and "those chicks aren't hot enough for the likes of me." Now the use of "lady hackers" has raised my hackles as well. (See the American Heritage Book of English Usage for a deft explanation of why: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/021.html http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/021.html.) I keep lurking because the community here is small enough to wash up a few pointers I wouldn't otherwise find. But, gentlemen, I take my insights where they're welcome.
- rms 19y ago
  >But, gentlemen, I take my insights where they're welcome. Where is that? And... I would tell you to give the community a chance and all that, but I'll let you make up your own mind.
- curi 19y ago
  YC is not perfect. But which places are considerably better? Certainly there are places where people focus narrowly enough on the topic for gender never to come up. But, that's probably true on YC too. Go to a different thread, make an on-topic post, and you can probably even post under a female sounding name with no one noticing.
- bayareaguy 19y ago
  As someone who never studied much biology, I must thank you for adding the word "homogametic" to my vocabulary.

24 points by pchristensen 19y ago

I just realized that I assume all of the users here are guys. I sure hope I'm wrong. Any ladies want to speak up? While girls are few in number in CS, they usually have valuable insights.

ivan 19y ago

Donna, http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=donna http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=donna but she disappeared several months ago :) I assume she changed her nickname not to be abused by nice looking hackers using this site. I think the problem is that PG doesn't allow us to publish our photos, so your question could be inspiring for him :) YC.news => Hacker.news => YC.Hacker.Dating.news

albertcardona 19y ago
Why talking about women needs to bring along dating? No wonder women hide away.
- imsteve 19y ago
  I believe the answer lies somewhere in our DNA. Please direct your complaints to Mr. Darwin.
  - reitzensteinm 19y ago
    Hey, don't shoot the messenger.
    - nraynaud 19y ago
      Why not ? that's totally counterproductive, but so distressing :)
  - curi 19y ago
    I get it now. Darwin designed our DNA. Intelligent design, and Darwinism, are both right.
    - daniel-cussen 19y ago
      ...I'm kind of taken aback by how clever that is. I wish I could upvote that many times.

huherto 19y ago

Where I work there are like 25 guys and only one girl(She is super smart and pretty). We have been trying to hire girls but we can't find any. For some reason they don't want to be programmers. That is very unfortunate.

mrtron 19y ago
I feel badly for her, for you just mentioned her attractiveness when it has no relevance. Perhaps when we (being the male gender we) start considering females' intelligence as the _only_ factor and not half of the equation things will change. Out of the 26 coworkers, you mentioned the physical attributes of the one female. Sorry to pick on your one quick post, but it is just very representative of our society's lingering gender gap.
- Tichy 19y ago
  I think it has some relevance, because it shows that being in IT does not imply unattractiveness. Talk about unattractiveness of male geeks is quite common, too. Also, I think it would be nonsense to deny our human attributes. Men are interested in women's looks, and vice versa. Actually, isn't it another complaint of successful women that to be successful, they had to become like men (a ka Margaret Thatcher)? So if a successful women is still attractive, it might be a good role model after all.
  - curi 19y ago
    It isn't "human" it is "cultural". Still shouldn't deny it, but it can and will change. (And has changed a lot already!)
    - Tichy 19y ago
      So you mean in other cultures looks don't matter? Maybe if the parents set up the marriages? Do you have any references?
      - 19y ago

daniel-cussen 19y ago

Not that I know of. I think there's a lot of stigma on both sides. There may be stigma against women in chat rooms like this one, and women may have a stigma against becoming hackers. These are just hypotheses, of course, and by no means do they apply to all hackers or all women. They're just general trends I've heard cited. That being said, the ratio of girl haxxors to guy haxxors in my dorm seems to be getting better. It's like 1:4 where it used to be 1:7. Another problem is that hacking is not very glamorous.

pchristensen 19y ago
1:4!!! That's got to be a record. When I was in school, there were 4 girls in my entire year of CS. They were all TAs, and you know what? They were the best TAs.
pius 19y ago
One thing I really liked about MIT was that there were plenty of women studying computer science. It seemed as if the ratio were around 50/50.
- aston 19y ago
  50/50 for MIT at large. Nowhere near that in Course VI, though.
manvsmachine 19y ago
It's definitely a bit of a mental block. A lot of girls who would love to be able to do things requiring hacking skills, but they don't want to actually have to learn the foundational stuff, i.e, Data Structures/systems programming. They want to be able to jump from the intro-level courses straight to bioinformatics or graphics/multimedia courses, not because they think it's too hard, but because they almost feel like it's going to do something to them as a person. "Yesterday, I gave a talk to our new cohort of Computational Media undergraduates about the CS classes that they will be taking. One student asked me about 3-D modeling, and I told him about our computer graphics classes. Then a young lady asked me a question that bowled me over, "If we don't take computer graphics and we get a Computational Media degree, is all that we can do is become programmers?" The last word just dripped with disdain, as if that was a mid-level in Dante's vision of hell." --Mark Guzdial

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]

timr 19y ago

I recently had an intriguing conversation with a female friend who is starting a CS program, after spending years in another field. She's about as used to "geek culture" as a person can get, but even she finds the people in CS to be overwhelming. Her take? CS departments need to focus a bit less effort on attracting women (a task which fundamentally defines them as different), and a bit more effort on repelling socially retarded men (who really are different). I can't say that I disagree. CS is the last refuge for some really damaged people; I get sick of it too. IMO, CS101 should be a mandatory class on hygiene and social skills for people who already know how to program.

amichail 19y ago
So instead of having highly rewarding and productive computing careers, these socially retarded men should do what instead? Become criminals perhaps?
- timr 19y ago
  I don't accept your premise. Very few people have highly rewarding and productive careers when they are socially retarded. Inversely, a little social etiquette never hurt anyone. The culture of computer science is currently unique, in that it gives the seed of antisocial behavior a fertile place to take root. That doesn't mean that antisocial behavior should be encouraged or accepted.
  - amichail 19y ago
    Maybe there's a good reason why so many computer programmers are antisocial. Maybe it takes an antisocial person to devote the enormous amounts of time and effort required to write non-trivial programs. Also, computer technology may make most people anti-social. Consider for example flamewars that would never take place off-line.
    - timr 19y ago
      I don't know if I buy that, either...is jwz anti-social? pmarca? pg? Joel (of on-software fame)? My personal experience has been that the best programmers have a large personality overlap with the best visual artists and musicians. That's not necessarily well-adjusted (crazy intensity and burnout often go along for the ride), but it's not anti-social either...certainly, you can't very well argue that artistic careers are unappealing to women! In any case, my gut instinct is that computer programmers tend to be anti-social, because anti-social people are drawn to careers that involve minimal human interaction. The computer gives anti-social tendencies room to grow, but I don't think it causes the problem.

DaniFong 19y ago

Hi there. I use the site pretty religiously. I hope that my comments are insightful. I know a few girl hackers. They do mention a lot of what might be called 'social friction'. In some cases, they stay around through undergrad because computers are a really magical, flexible medium. The good news is that we like a lot of hackers and scientists and technical people. They're interesting. Other fields have their human debris, too. Lawyers have frat-boys. Lit-majors have bullshitters. But rarely do other fields have people getting together to make things, and that's just a lot of fun. :-)

pchristensen 19y ago
Gentlemen, we have our first lady to speak up! Let's take a sample and see if the "insightful comments" thing holds up: "I read somewhere that the blockbuster title 'Gears of War' had only about half a million lines of C++ code" "We're starting a startup in computer vision. We're deploying across the web, but that's just because it's the cheapest distribution mechanism." "I asked: in principle, if these black-boxes handled all the trades, where would the decision to trade or not come from." "I asked if it was moral to play such a risky game with the economy." "my most productive periods (in the sense of producing something) have all involved some kind of death march" "The concept of sending electricity wirelessly has been imagined, but nobody had come up with a decent way to avoid the losses except by using an actively controlled beam method." All of these were in the last 3 weeks. I'd say they definitely qualify as insightful. Glad to have you, DaniFong.
amichail 19y ago
I have a lot of respect for women who like the idea of building novel applications but don't want to get their hands dirty with the programming/computer science involved. This is kind of like architects who want to design buildings but would rather leave implementation details to engineers. That's the way it should be.
- DaniFong 19y ago
  Well, that's the way it often is. But I hesitate to agree that it's the way it should be. I try not to shy away from implementation myself, and I think there's a lot of benefit to exposing oneself to details. To quote PG: "In principle you could make any mark in any medium; in practice the medium steers you. And if you're no longer doing the work yourself, you stop learning from this." I speak for myself, but this true almost everywhere. Small changes in the resistance of medium, and in the convenience of doing one thing or another, often lead to drastic differences in the sort of things people create. I heard that someone actually managed to play 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on Trombone. I'm not sure I can impress upon you how difficult that sounds -- there are like 5 notes per second, each requiring precise intonation, and it never lets up long enough for the poor soul playing it to breath. Apparently, it can be done. But I'm almost certain nothing of the sort would have been composed on it. Programs are often the same way. Sometimes, the idea doesn't occur to you until you understand how to implement it. Or, as the case may be, until you actually implement it. I read that Scheme was in part an attempt to implement an Actor model. When they implemented lexical closures and actors, they discovered that the implementations were the same!

tlrobinson 19y ago

OMG a woman on the internet. Pix plzzz!!!

tlrobinson 19y ago
p.s. before you mod me down: http://xkcd.com/322/ http://xkcd.com/322/
e1ven 19y ago
Unfortunately, repeating an ill meme, particularly in a way that seems as if you are falling into the trap isn't particularly ironic or clever, it's just socially awkward. I understand what you're going for, but it doesn't accomplish your goal, and it just continues a stereotype rather than working to create an environment that's conducive for discussion.
- tlrobinson 19y ago
  I understand that, and I normally am not the kind of person to say such things, but I thought it was rather meta-ironic, considering the xkcd comic... edit: unless, of course, you were trying to be meta-ironic too...
  - rin 19y ago
    The problem is, these ironies and meta-ironies are just as old, trite, tiring, and grating as the same thing meant seriously. Believe me, meta-irony on this topic has been done before, many times, and not only based on the irony of an xkcd comic. It might be the first time you do this, and you think it's funny, clever, and 'meta-ironic' (oooh). I suppose it's somewhat like lists of jokes that people forward around: funny the first few times, and "I'm going to auto-killfile this" after a few years of hearing the same ones.

sundae1888 19y ago

Does it really matter? (See if you can infer my gender from this question alone.) There are 5 females in my company's R&D, comparing to about 30 males. That was way better than at my previous employer, where I was the only female in the 25-person team.

huherto 19y ago
I think it matters. A more diverse group of people will make the conversations more interesting. The same way that it is good to have hackers from many countries.
manvsmachine 19y ago
I'd say it does. Maybe not specifically to yc, but overall for the industry. Not that the prevalence of women is directly proportional to a given field's success, but it's like money: having more than someone else doesn't mean you're better, but if you don't have any at all, you're probably fucking up somewhere.
- Tichy 19y ago
  It would definitely be more motivating to go to work every day if there were some female colleagues.
imsteve 19y ago
This topic matters because it is a natural extension of those, quite thought stimulating, lists of traits of the best programmers. Lots of stereotypes are held merely for lack of data. Lets put more data on the table.

daniel-cussen 19y ago

This subject is a huge can of worms. On the one hand you'll have members of a largely-male audience say that there should be more women in CS and that the industry is extremely sexist. They'll say women are wonderful. Then you have the people who agree and say women are great and sexually attractive. You have the people who complains at this objectification and say that it's people like these that are responsible for gross gender inequalities. Then you have the people who point at IQ research. Then you have people that question the validity and conclusions of the research. You then have extreme self-righteousness. Then there's blatant sexism. Then someone mentions Carla Fiorina as a good example, but someone says she didn't deserve her success. You get people trying really hard to put a finger on why they think men are better hackers without sounding like bigots. They can lie on either sides of the spectrum of intellectual honesty. When scientific studies are mentioned, they can be rationalizations of bigotry or attempts at honesty and open-mindedness. I hope I didn't overrepresent the point of view of any of the many sides of the argument. I've looked over this post and alternated the order of the points of view in the sentences and paragraphs above. However, I feel really weird about this discussion. I suspect that no matter how hard I try to talk about these issues without taking a stand with regard to politically incorrect subjects, I'm going to look like an asshole if I don't ultimately rule in favor of the politically correct viewpoint. But if you go so far as lying about your viewpoints in order to look politically correct, you're a bullshitter, and no less of a bigot. On the other hand, being too concerned about the dangers of political correctness might actually make me more prejudiced. What worries me is that there might not even be a safe zone between being a bullshitter and being a bigot. It might be impossible to add to this topic without being either a bullshitter, a bigot, or a little of both. But then, every person with an opinion on the subject would be an asshole in some shape or form, and that doesn't seem reasonable. There should be a safe zone. Of course, if you believed every politically correct statement, and you expressed those views, you'd be fine. But how common is this? Who can say they're totally unbiased? Should we only let he (or she) who is without sin cast the first stone? If we did things this way, though, guilty parties would avoid getting a stoning they may deserve. It's a can of worms. There's not a lot you can say without someone going ad hominem on you. It is not a bad idea to put this kind of question on Hacker News; it is supposed to be an open forum about what things interesting to hackers. But because it is an open forum, try not to wantonly go around chastising other posters. As a reader, you should know what you're in for when you choose to read this link. People can say whatever they want, and they will. Sometimes they'll be too politically correct, sometimes they won't be politically correct enough. On top of that, there's the bullshit from both sides. You might end up reading something you'll find personally hurtful. But then, this is a forum. People have been asked not to be mean, and for the most part they'll try not to be. But if you don't want to risk being hurt, don't go into the forum. I didn't write this very well. I apologize. I wound up being pedantic, too. And I said some things that might cost me. But I can't keep rewriting this and make semantic barricades that I can later hide behind. I can't censor myself based on what future employers and people like that might think when they google me.

yters 19y ago

What is it about geeks that turns women off? Is it merely the social maladjustment? We males tend to adjust our behaviors based on what women find sexy, which is partially why universities used to be male only. Geekiness correlates with good intellectual work, but as mentioned, women don't like it. Which also makes me think that the key to guiding society is by defining what women find sexy.

zasz 19y ago
I like geeks. I'm not a very good geek myself, but I can mostly follow the technical discussions, with lots of Googling. I can't speak for other women, but I hate it when people exhibit a lack of social skills, and it especially infuriates me when they're not funny or overly shy. Aside from confidence, health, social skills, and ability to entertain and amuse, I think the only thing society can define about male sexiness is the prestige of his financial prospects. Perhaps some other woman will have more input.
- yters 19y ago
  I'd say the definition of sexiness has changed. Now "sexy" is dashing, promiscuous, childmen. The qualities essential for good families are not considered very sexy, whereas they used to be moreso.

rin 19y ago

I'm yet another one, though I don't spend much time on yc; I spend more time on reddit and slashdot (not under this name), and actual coding.

albertcardona 19y ago

Should tell you a lot about the kind of incorrect attention that women get in this site (and anywhere else in the internet, including chat rooms) the fact that nearly no women get an obvious female nickname. Just imagine what would happen if you create a user whose name was "Laura". Try it.

codewhisperer 19y ago

Speaking as a member of the homogametic sex, I've been lurking on news.ycomb for a few months now. About the time I was considering speaking up on an algorithms topic, this appeared as a leading link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99255. The comments included such insights as "where can I get me some of that" and "those chicks aren't hot enough for the likes of me." Now the use of "lady hackers" has raised my hackles as well. (See the American Heritage Book of English Usage for a deft explanation of why: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/021.html http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/021.html.) I keep lurking because the community here is small enough to wash up a few pointers I wouldn't otherwise find. But, gentlemen, I take my insights where they're welcome.

rms 19y ago
>But, gentlemen, I take my insights where they're welcome. Where is that? And... I would tell you to give the community a chance and all that, but I'll let you make up your own mind.
curi 19y ago
YC is not perfect. But which places are considerably better? Certainly there are places where people focus narrowly enough on the topic for gender never to come up. But, that's probably true on YC too. Go to a different thread, make an on-topic post, and you can probably even post under a female sounding name with no one noticing.
bayareaguy 19y ago
As someone who never studied much biology, I must thank you for adding the word "homogametic" to my vocabulary.