4 ms·

What came first? Was the cast of Revenge of the Nerds all males because nerds were males and art was depicting reality, or did only men start becoming nerds bec

What came first? Was the cast of Revenge of the Nerds all males because nerds were males and art was depicting reality, or did only men start becoming nerds become this movie had an all-male cast? I get being envious of people who had a head start with computers and feeling behind. I had zero coding experience before my first CS class in college. It sucked, but I grinded through it. It's relatively easy to catch up with determination. Probably going to be an unpopular opinion.

dx87 8y ago
I'll start by saying that I agree that determination can overcome a late start, but familial and society pressures can be really difficult to overcome. My wife comes from a small southern town and wanted to be a writer and college professor, but was constantly ridiculed and chastized by teachers and family because she is a woman, so they said she should just be a nurse, or get married and be a housewife. Her family refused to help with her college education, and her dad and mom would tell her that she should quit her masters program to cook and clean while I was at work. She didn't listen to them, but a lot of her female cousins do, and just get stuck in shitty marriages and deadend jobs, never doing what they want. Progamming is also manufactured to be a "male" profession. It used to be that researchers were males, and programming was considered womans work, like doing data entry. When companies like IBM discovered that the best programmers tended to be anti-social males, and that females tended to leave careers earlier to start a family, big tech companies focused all their recruitment on males until progamming became a "male" job. It's similar to how light beer used to be considered a womans drink, but beer companies started running ads showing football players and other masculine figures drinking it, and now it's acceptable for anyone to drink.
- keithnoizu 8y ago
  Supporting document: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi...

dx87 8y ago

I'll start by saying that I agree that determination can overcome a late start, but familial and society pressures can be really difficult to overcome. My wife comes from a small southern town and wanted to be a writer and college professor, but was constantly ridiculed and chastized by teachers and family because she is a woman, so they said she should just be a nurse, or get married and be a housewife. Her family refused to help with her college education, and her dad and mom would tell her that she should quit her masters program to cook and clean while I was at work. She didn't listen to them, but a lot of her female cousins do, and just get stuck in shitty marriages and deadend jobs, never doing what they want. Progamming is also manufactured to be a "male" profession. It used to be that researchers were males, and programming was considered womans work, like doing data entry. When companies like IBM discovered that the best programmers tended to be anti-social males, and that females tended to leave careers earlier to start a family, big tech companies focused all their recruitment on males until progamming became a "male" job. It's similar to how light beer used to be considered a womans drink, but beer companies started running ads showing football players and other masculine figures drinking it, and now it's acceptable for anyone to drink.

keithnoizu 8y ago
Supporting document: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi...