6 ms·

Girl geek appeal: Women's movement online

12 points by bootload 17y ago

jacktang 17y ago
How many girl geeks here?
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Quite a few http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749617 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749617 , lots of them in 'stealth' mode to ward off unwanted attention.
- dgabriel 17y ago
  A few. Wish there were more, but it's all good.
klaut 17y ago
me :)
bootload 17y ago
"... Our logos are all pink and that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. It's friendly but it walks the line between the serious issues and gathering to have fun. ..." This is an interesting point. One of the quickest way to stop women according to "Sapna Cheryan" (Uni.Washington) is "You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with," For men, it was reported, decor made no difference.[0] "... "The feminist movement was incredibly important to people like my mum who had to argue with people like my programming teacher so that I could stay in my course," explained Judith Lewis ..." That is really sad. [0] Wired, Lisa Grossman, "Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists" ~ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-women-computer-science/#ixzz0nF5aekTY http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-wo...
- _delirium 17y ago
  I wonder how old Judith Lewis is, or if this varies by area and subject? My mom was a chemistry BS and MS major in the late 60s / early 70s, and she seems to think that when she started in 1966, there were a lot of "women don't belong in science" dinosaur professors, but by the early 1970s they were almost all gone, or at least had been "encouraged" into keeping quiet.
  - yardie 17y ago
    Maybe they went into engineering. I started uni in the late 90s, the natural sciences already had a nice mix of men and women, except physics. Engineering was still a man's world even then. Then one of my professors dropped the proverbial bomb in class, declaring that "women don't belong in engineering". It was a fiasco for a little while, the university stated its disagreement but couldn't fire him. He retired a year later (the guy looked like he was on death's doorstop). The school has been trying, for years, to get more women and minorities into engineering but it's usually just a modest bump in good years, when they have money to actively search. Leaner times, like now, may mean small drop in an already small pool of viable candidates.
    - hugh3 17y ago
      more women and minorities into engineering More minorities into engineering? What school did you go to that the engineering classes weren't almost entirely Asian and/or Indian?
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - gte910h 17y ago
        I believe they mean Latino and Black students, which are underrepresented. NACME for instance, is trying to get a engineering racial makeup much more similar to that of the US at large. http://www.nacme.org/NACME_D.aspx?pageid=96 http://www.nacme.org/NACME_D.aspx?pageid=96 And while many of the sub-continent students (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) would love to stay, many of them are foreign nationals, and will likely have to leave (or choose to).

12 points by bootload 17y ago

jacktang 17y ago

How many girl geeks here?

jacquesm 17y ago
Quite a few http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749617 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749617 , lots of them in 'stealth' mode to ward off unwanted attention.
dgabriel 17y ago
A few. Wish there were more, but it's all good.

klaut 17y ago

me :)

bootload 17y ago

"... Our logos are all pink and that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. It's friendly but it walks the line between the serious issues and gathering to have fun. ..." This is an interesting point. One of the quickest way to stop women according to "Sapna Cheryan" (Uni.Washington) is "You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with," For men, it was reported, decor made no difference.[0] "... "The feminist movement was incredibly important to people like my mum who had to argue with people like my programming teacher so that I could stay in my course," explained Judith Lewis ..." That is really sad. [0] Wired, Lisa Grossman, "Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists" ~ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-women-computer-science/#ixzz0nF5aekTY http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-wo...

_delirium 17y ago
I wonder how old Judith Lewis is, or if this varies by area and subject? My mom was a chemistry BS and MS major in the late 60s / early 70s, and she seems to think that when she started in 1966, there were a lot of "women don't belong in science" dinosaur professors, but by the early 1970s they were almost all gone, or at least had been "encouraged" into keeping quiet.
- yardie 17y ago
  Maybe they went into engineering. I started uni in the late 90s, the natural sciences already had a nice mix of men and women, except physics. Engineering was still a man's world even then. Then one of my professors dropped the proverbial bomb in class, declaring that "women don't belong in engineering". It was a fiasco for a little while, the university stated its disagreement but couldn't fire him. He retired a year later (the guy looked like he was on death's doorstop). The school has been trying, for years, to get more women and minorities into engineering but it's usually just a modest bump in good years, when they have money to actively search. Leaner times, like now, may mean small drop in an already small pool of viable candidates.
  - hugh3 17y ago
    more women and minorities into engineering More minorities into engineering? What school did you go to that the engineering classes weren't almost entirely Asian and/or Indian?
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - gte910h 17y ago
      I believe they mean Latino and Black students, which are underrepresented. NACME for instance, is trying to get a engineering racial makeup much more similar to that of the US at large. http://www.nacme.org/NACME_D.aspx?pageid=96 http://www.nacme.org/NACME_D.aspx?pageid=96 And while many of the sub-continent students (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) would love to stay, many of them are foreign nationals, and will likely have to leave (or choose to).