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Hi everyone. I'm a woman with a math degree who just completed a computer programming certificate. I've wanted to study math my whole life, and I wasn't exposed

by novia 9y ago

Hi everyone. I'm a woman with a math degree who just completed a computer programming certificate. I've wanted to study math my whole life, and I wasn't exposed to programming as a field of study until college. I just wanted to state that, for the record, having these sorts of discussions on hacker news is extremely distressing to me. I've worked hard to get the accreditations that I have, and I usually enjoy the things I read on this website. But just imagine for a moment how all this appears to an aspiring programmer when she wakes up in the morning and checks her favorite technical content aggregator. Like, yeah, none of you are saying that ALL women are less capable than ALL men, but what I'm reading here is the subtext. When I pursue a career in this field, how will my coworkers perceive me? Will I be treated with respect? Or will I be seated next to someone who is convinced that there is a gender war going on, and thereby offended by my very presence?

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
> "When I pursue a career in this field, how will my coworkers perceive me?" In all honesty, recently I've seen underperforming women get promoted to positions they shouldn't have been promoted to because of political pressures, so there is going to be some sense of "is she competent or is she a diversity hire/promotion?" They also might think, does she really enjoy tech, is she a nerd like me, or is she just looking for a cushy office job in software that the "diversity/women-in-X" groups are so loudly promoting.
- icefox 9y ago
  > They also might think, does she really enjoy tech, is she a nerd like me, or is she just looking for a cushy office job in software that the "diversity/women-in-X" groups are so loudly promoting. Hell I think that about all my colleagues whatever their gender is. Seen plenty of males don't really want to code, but it pays too well to not.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
auggierose 9y ago
I think a lot of people here don't really think about the effects their words have on other people, no matter the topic. I have been guilty of that too, both in online comments and in real life. "Guilty" is maybe even the wrong word, it can be very useful! I've asked Timothy Gowers once at a conference if he has ever written a program, and he said no! So you know more than he does when it comes to computer programming, just take that as a starting point and not the comments here :)
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I'm unclear if you're asking the community not to have a discussion because you don't want to read it? There's a way to hide posts you don't want to read, I do it all the time with bitcoin articles.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Sexism* is rampant. It is not merely present in threads where the link is about gender studies. You cannot "block it out" like you would any other topic. It is not a "topic of discussion" but an issue lurking behind other topics. *Sexism has can take many shapes others than direct attacks on women. Edit: Interesting how this went from +5 to -5 in minutes. Very controversial topic, eh?
  - alexandercrohde 9y ago
    I guess this doesn't answer my question. What's the ask here? OP suggested this discussion was "incredibly distressing," I'm unclear if anybody is entertaining the notion that a debate among dozens cannot happen because one person wanders in who's distressed by it, or what?
    - Raphmedia 9y ago
      Sorry, I was under the impression that this was a rhetorical question. Of course she doesn't want the community to censor itself. She is describing how such discussions are distressing to women (and not merely to herself, as you seem to state). She gives the example of an aspiring programmer stumbling on HN, noticing all the subtle sexism and giving up STEM. Which is precisely the issue that we should be debating. In short, her point isn't "don't talk about it" but "don't be a bigot about it". Don't talk about it as if women weren't reading the threads. As if amongst boys. A lot of those threads end up circle-jerking into a "men vs. women" debate while the actual debate should be "what is it in our communities that is driving women away?" My point in that reply was that she shouldn't be the one blocking those threads, her point of view as a woman is vital in such a debate. It should be us that act more civilized instead.
blub 9y ago
Some will be openly dismissive, others will hide their disapproval, others won't care and some will enjoy working with you. As an immigrant wondering how the natives perceive me, I've learned that one has to do their best and be assertive when it's necessary. Ultimately it depends on luck. To split the world in ones tribe and "the other" is human nature, and not discussing things on HN won't make things better...
Veelox 9y ago
At least at my workplace I tend to assume that the women are on average a little more competent than the men because they have to really want to be here to have stuck around.
rvo 9y ago
There is the flip side too. I wouldn't want to be known as the diversity hire. I want to be judged on my work and my skills. Not on what chromosomes I carry or what my melenin level is. The more we keep framing things in the context of hiring to meet gender based quotas, the more people will see us as diversity hires. I would hate that more than knowing someone doesn't like me because of my gender because that persons mind I can maybe change via my skills and work.
- door2 9y ago
  Maybe that’s the problem of sexist and racist white men who can’t believe that a woman or PoC could possibly be here based on merit and always treat them with suspicion. It’s not the fault of people trying to fix the problem.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - zxxon 9y ago
    If someone literally gets hired over some white dude by "virtue" of their gender and/or race, then they aren't there by merit. That's exactly what some ideologically (or PR) driven HR departments do. The suspicion is entirely warranted. The thing is, such practices also damage the self-image of the hire in question. Am I being hired for my abilities, or for being a number in some statistic?
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      That is exactly what happened with my wife when she was a developer. She only likes coding and solving technical problems, the problem was her entire team was women and promoted this "yay sisterhood" groupthink, even to the point of openly talking about how they hired my wife so they could keep the team devoid of any males...she hated it so much and ended up going to a more technically-inclined and less sexist team before leaving the tech industry for good. She always said the "women-in-tech" groups did more harm than good and thinks its just one big "women/POC-in-tech industry" that unfortunately won't be going away anytime soon since there is now so much money involved.
wrren 9y ago
I'm not sure what this has to do with the article; it doesn't make any judgements on women's suitability for careers in STEM. Where it does talk about ability, it points out that women are, on average, better at science and maths than men. I think the article is making a similar point to that of Damore's memo; the difference in representation may be explained by a difference in preference. That's not a value judgement of capability.
- door2 9y ago
  This is a narrative that you can only plausibly believe in if you’re a man surrounded by almost entirely men. Sexism and harassment is rampant in this field, as well as any male dominated field.
mpweiher 9y ago
> [just completed] [wanted to study all my life] Congrats! > extremely distressing to me. Why? > just imagine [..] appears to an aspiring programmer Hmm...how do you think it should appear? You hint (strongly), but you don't really say. > none of you are saying that ALL women are less capable than ALL men, Yes. As in: not even a bit. First, most of the talk is about preferences, not ability. Second, if anything it is about distributions that have large overlaps, with average ability being the same and with differences (in STEM), if anywhere, mostly in the width of the distribution (so males may have wider variance). Third, there is apparently one difference in ability, which then reflects itself in preference: women with high math scores tend to also have high verbal scores, whereas men with high math scores tend to only have high math scores, they are not good at the verbal bits. And statistically, people of either gender with high scores in both prefer going into non-STEM fields. Fourth (going back to the second point): all of these are at most distributions. They say absolutely nothing about any individual. For example, I am a guy but despite the fact that I scored high in both math and verbal parts (and absolutely atrociously at the 3D mental rotation that supposedly explains a slight edge for guys in STEM), and was interested in (a) physics (b) english literature and linguistics (c) philosophy here I am as a programmer. > but what I'm reading here is the subtext. What is the subtext you're reading? Can you be specific? What I see, text and subtext is an entire field defending itself from being smeared as sexist assholes with zero credible evidence of this being true and due almost entirely to choices other people make, choices that the people in this field have absolutely no influence over. > [How will be perceived/respected etc.] This will depend almost entirely on your individual circumstances, meaning most people will treat you with respect if you treat them with respect and behave respectably yourself. If you enter as a gender warrior, things might be different. Is this a 100% guarantee? Nope, nothing is. Assholes exist. In every industry. If I told you the things that have happened to me in this industry, you probably wouldn't believe me, and if I claimed this happened to a woman, it would be seen as surefire proof of the systemic sexism in the industry. Except it happened to a guy, so whatever. And if shit happens to you, you probably want to assume it is because there are shitty people, not because of your gender. A 2008 survey[1] by the ACM that actually interviewed both men and women didn't find significant differences in most parameters of job satisfaction, and in fact women reported slightly higher support by their superior than men did. [1] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-the-it-profession/fulltext https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-...
uhohnotgood 9y ago
So, I'll be honest here. I'm at a {top5} CS university, and I would say that most of the people I talk with are pretty top students in STEM. There definitely is an "initial impressions" bias against women in tech. When looking at the credentials for a woman in tech, it's hard to compare them on a one to one basis to a white/asian man. For example, Facebook University/Google Practicum/Twitter University/any other diversity program is a great opportunity for URM in CS. However, it's completely closed off to white/asian males in tech. Thus, if you look at somebody's resume and you see Facebook on there, you can infer that a white/asian male must have gone through their regular SWE interview process. However, a woman may have simply gone through FBU, where they're asked to write an essay + write fibonacci. Whether the interview process/having FB on your resume should be indicative of skill is an entirely different problem altogether. That's an obvious example, but "diversity" hires are present throughout the entire industry. You have higher acceptance rates for tech colleges for URM, special diversity hiring processes, etc. Basically, accomplishments are harder to judge for women in tech. Luckily, these biases go away after interacting with a girl face to face.
commandlinefan 9y ago
> but what I'm reading here is the subtext As far as I can tell, the linked article is saying exactly the opposite - that women can be and are perfectly capable as programmers, but that the gender imbalance is probably not driven by exclusionary tactics on the part of the men who make up the majority. It is noteworty that I've never even heard of a woman saying that she actually pursued programming as a profession and found herself excluded - just that the ones who do are surprised how few other women they see.

by novia 9y ago

Caveman_Coder 9y ago

> "When I pursue a career in this field, how will my coworkers perceive me?" In all honesty, recently I've seen underperforming women get promoted to positions they shouldn't have been promoted to because of political pressures, so there is going to be some sense of "is she competent or is she a diversity hire/promotion?" They also might think, does she really enjoy tech, is she a nerd like me, or is she just looking for a cushy office job in software that the "diversity/women-in-X" groups are so loudly promoting.

icefox 9y ago
> They also might think, does she really enjoy tech, is she a nerd like me, or is she just looking for a cushy office job in software that the "diversity/women-in-X" groups are so loudly promoting. Hell I think that about all my colleagues whatever their gender is. Seen plenty of males don't really want to code, but it pays too well to not.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

auggierose 9y ago

I think a lot of people here don't really think about the effects their words have on other people, no matter the topic. I have been guilty of that too, both in online comments and in real life. "Guilty" is maybe even the wrong word, it can be very useful! I've asked Timothy Gowers once at a conference if he has ever written a program, and he said no! So you know more than he does when it comes to computer programming, just take that as a starting point and not the comments here :)

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I'm unclear if you're asking the community not to have a discussion because you don't want to read it? There's a way to hide posts you don't want to read, I do it all the time with bitcoin articles.

Raphmedia 9y ago
Sexism* is rampant. It is not merely present in threads where the link is about gender studies. You cannot "block it out" like you would any other topic. It is not a "topic of discussion" but an issue lurking behind other topics. *Sexism has can take many shapes others than direct attacks on women. Edit: Interesting how this went from +5 to -5 in minutes. Very controversial topic, eh?
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  I guess this doesn't answer my question. What's the ask here? OP suggested this discussion was "incredibly distressing," I'm unclear if anybody is entertaining the notion that a debate among dozens cannot happen because one person wanders in who's distressed by it, or what?
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    Sorry, I was under the impression that this was a rhetorical question. Of course she doesn't want the community to censor itself. She is describing how such discussions are distressing to women (and not merely to herself, as you seem to state). She gives the example of an aspiring programmer stumbling on HN, noticing all the subtle sexism and giving up STEM. Which is precisely the issue that we should be debating. In short, her point isn't "don't talk about it" but "don't be a bigot about it". Don't talk about it as if women weren't reading the threads. As if amongst boys. A lot of those threads end up circle-jerking into a "men vs. women" debate while the actual debate should be "what is it in our communities that is driving women away?" My point in that reply was that she shouldn't be the one blocking those threads, her point of view as a woman is vital in such a debate. It should be us that act more civilized instead.

blub 9y ago

Some will be openly dismissive, others will hide their disapproval, others won't care and some will enjoy working with you. As an immigrant wondering how the natives perceive me, I've learned that one has to do their best and be assertive when it's necessary. Ultimately it depends on luck. To split the world in ones tribe and "the other" is human nature, and not discussing things on HN won't make things better...

Veelox 9y ago

At least at my workplace I tend to assume that the women are on average a little more competent than the men because they have to really want to be here to have stuck around.

rvo 9y ago

There is the flip side too. I wouldn't want to be known as the diversity hire. I want to be judged on my work and my skills. Not on what chromosomes I carry or what my melenin level is. The more we keep framing things in the context of hiring to meet gender based quotas, the more people will see us as diversity hires. I would hate that more than knowing someone doesn't like me because of my gender because that persons mind I can maybe change via my skills and work.

door2 9y ago
Maybe that’s the problem of sexist and racist white men who can’t believe that a woman or PoC could possibly be here based on merit and always treat them with suspicion. It’s not the fault of people trying to fix the problem.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zxxon 9y ago
  If someone literally gets hired over some white dude by "virtue" of their gender and/or race, then they aren't there by merit. That's exactly what some ideologically (or PR) driven HR departments do. The suspicion is entirely warranted. The thing is, such practices also damage the self-image of the hire in question. Am I being hired for my abilities, or for being a number in some statistic?
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    That is exactly what happened with my wife when she was a developer. She only likes coding and solving technical problems, the problem was her entire team was women and promoted this "yay sisterhood" groupthink, even to the point of openly talking about how they hired my wife so they could keep the team devoid of any males...she hated it so much and ended up going to a more technically-inclined and less sexist team before leaving the tech industry for good. She always said the "women-in-tech" groups did more harm than good and thinks its just one big "women/POC-in-tech industry" that unfortunately won't be going away anytime soon since there is now so much money involved.

wrren 9y ago

I'm not sure what this has to do with the article; it doesn't make any judgements on women's suitability for careers in STEM. Where it does talk about ability, it points out that women are, on average, better at science and maths than men. I think the article is making a similar point to that of Damore's memo; the difference in representation may be explained by a difference in preference. That's not a value judgement of capability.

door2 9y ago
This is a narrative that you can only plausibly believe in if you’re a man surrounded by almost entirely men. Sexism and harassment is rampant in this field, as well as any male dominated field.

mpweiher 9y ago

> [just completed] [wanted to study all my life] Congrats! > extremely distressing to me. Why? > just imagine [..] appears to an aspiring programmer Hmm...how do you think it should appear? You hint (strongly), but you don't really say. > none of you are saying that ALL women are less capable than ALL men, Yes. As in: not even a bit. First, most of the talk is about preferences, not ability. Second, if anything it is about distributions that have large overlaps, with average ability being the same and with differences (in STEM), if anywhere, mostly in the width of the distribution (so males may have wider variance). Third, there is apparently one difference in ability, which then reflects itself in preference: women with high math scores tend to also have high verbal scores, whereas men with high math scores tend to only have high math scores, they are not good at the verbal bits. And statistically, people of either gender with high scores in both prefer going into non-STEM fields. Fourth (going back to the second point): all of these are at most distributions. They say absolutely nothing about any individual. For example, I am a guy but despite the fact that I scored high in both math and verbal parts (and absolutely atrociously at the 3D mental rotation that supposedly explains a slight edge for guys in STEM), and was interested in (a) physics (b) english literature and linguistics (c) philosophy here I am as a programmer. > but what I'm reading here is the subtext. What is the subtext you're reading? Can you be specific? What I see, text and subtext is an entire field defending itself from being smeared as sexist assholes with zero credible evidence of this being true and due almost entirely to choices other people make, choices that the people in this field have absolutely no influence over. > [How will be perceived/respected etc.] This will depend almost entirely on your individual circumstances, meaning most people will treat you with respect if you treat them with respect and behave respectably yourself. If you enter as a gender warrior, things might be different. Is this a 100% guarantee? Nope, nothing is. Assholes exist. In every industry. If I told you the things that have happened to me in this industry, you probably wouldn't believe me, and if I claimed this happened to a woman, it would be seen as surefire proof of the systemic sexism in the industry. Except it happened to a guy, so whatever. And if shit happens to you, you probably want to assume it is because there are shitty people, not because of your gender. A 2008 survey[1] by the ACM that actually interviewed both men and women didn't find significant differences in most parameters of job satisfaction, and in fact women reported slightly higher support by their superior than men did. [1] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-the-it-profession/fulltext https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-...

uhohnotgood 9y ago

So, I'll be honest here. I'm at a {top5} CS university, and I would say that most of the people I talk with are pretty top students in STEM. There definitely is an "initial impressions" bias against women in tech. When looking at the credentials for a woman in tech, it's hard to compare them on a one to one basis to a white/asian man. For example, Facebook University/Google Practicum/Twitter University/any other diversity program is a great opportunity for URM in CS. However, it's completely closed off to white/asian males in tech. Thus, if you look at somebody's resume and you see Facebook on there, you can infer that a white/asian male must have gone through their regular SWE interview process. However, a woman may have simply gone through FBU, where they're asked to write an essay + write fibonacci. Whether the interview process/having FB on your resume should be indicative of skill is an entirely different problem altogether. That's an obvious example, but "diversity" hires are present throughout the entire industry. You have higher acceptance rates for tech colleges for URM, special diversity hiring processes, etc. Basically, accomplishments are harder to judge for women in tech. Luckily, these biases go away after interacting with a girl face to face.

commandlinefan 9y ago

> but what I'm reading here is the subtext As far as I can tell, the linked article is saying exactly the opposite - that women can be and are perfectly capable as programmers, but that the gender imbalance is probably not driven by exclusionary tactics on the part of the men who make up the majority. It is noteworty that I've never even heard of a woman saying that she actually pursued programming as a profession and found herself excluded - just that the ones who do are surprised how few other women they see.