4 ms·

I'm a young woman in tech. I am happy to confirm that "since most young women aren't exactly excited to talk about code" is in fact some sexist bullshit.

drno_ 7y ago
While most people are not programmers, most programmers are not women. It's a subset of a subset, seems pretty accurate. It's worth noting though that most men aren't interested in discussing programming either. People in our field are few and far between :(
magashna 7y ago
> most young women I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code with most young women. It's not happening. Most people don't code, and most coders are male.
- crustacean 7y ago
  But why talk shop on a date at all though? - A shared niche interest is not sufficient basis for a good relationship. - I’m a woman in tech and I don’t necessarily wanna talk code on a first or second date, I’ve got professional development figured out on my own time.
  - magashna 7y ago
    The presumption was that it's sexist to assume you can't talk code with young women. I don't want to talk code with anyone 99% of my off time. But to say the reasoning is sexist is untrue.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - username90 7y ago
    > But why talk shop on a date at all though? Because lots of programmers loves to talk about code? > A shared niche interest is not sufficient basis for a good relationship. Then what is a good basis for a relationship? A shared interest in ubiquitous interests like food, blockbusters or travel? I don't think that is much better. > I’m a woman in tech and I don’t necessarily wanna talk code on a first or second date, I’ve got professional development figured out on my own time. Good for you, not everyone feels like that though.
- babadabada 7y ago
  > I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code with most young women. I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code to literally any person.
  - magashna 7y ago
    Exactly. The point is it's not sexist.
- uwuhn 7y ago
  Even in certain parts of SF, which I'd argue is the most engineer-dense part of the US, you can go into an average bar or club and discover that most of the men aren't interested in talking about code either.
leetcrew 7y ago
the wording was sort of clumsy, but this is not a very charitable take. most people (men and women) really don't want to talk in depth about code or any other of your specific interests.
cocomittens 7y ago
Same. Though I do have to admit the gender ratio is skewed a bit at my company you can count on one hand the amount of female engineers while there is 100+ male ones. They even changed the female bathroom to be 2 male ones but left us a couple fancy individual ones which I'm fine with.
SkyBelow 7y ago
How? Most people don't want to talk code. Thus, given a demographic breakdown that relates neither positively nor negatively with talking code, one can assume the general pattern applies. Most old people don't want to talk code. Most young people don't want to talk code. Most left handed people don't want to talk code. None of these are discriminating. They are stating that a pattern true of the general population also applies to a demographic partition of the population.
- babadabada 7y ago
  How? Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do. Especially given the excessive amount of nonsense women in tech (and not in tech) have to deal with on a daily basis. Talk like this leads to women feeling excluded from the tech community. Also, specifically calling out "young women" as not being interested in tech really makes a lot of assumptions. Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves. Most women I know will happily talk about tech stuff with me, so maybe your approach is wrong.
  - x220 7y ago
    Do you never make generalizations or broad assumptions?
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    >Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do. Is it that those assumptions are not cool to make about 100% of the population either? Is it wrong of me to assume that the average person does not want to talk about code? Because if it isn't wrong to make the assumption about the average person, but it is wrong to make it about some subset, then isn't that, at its very core, treating that demographic different than the average? >Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves. Yes, most people will engage in enough conversation to be polite. But there is a significant difference between talking about something a person cares about and them politely carrying on a conversation they aren't interested in. These are not the same behavior and do not generally result in the same outcome . And none of this has to do with gender as I notice this when talking with friends of either gender.
larnmar 7y ago
Does being sexist make it untrue? Are truth and sexistness orthogonal axes? If you had to choose between saying something true but sexist and non-sexist but untrue, which would you pick?

drno_ 7y ago

While most people are not programmers, most programmers are not women. It's a subset of a subset, seems pretty accurate. It's worth noting though that most men aren't interested in discussing programming either. People in our field are few and far between :(

magashna 7y ago

> most young women I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code with most young women. It's not happening. Most people don't code, and most coders are male.

crustacean 7y ago
But why talk shop on a date at all though? - A shared niche interest is not sufficient basis for a good relationship. - I’m a woman in tech and I don’t necessarily wanna talk code on a first or second date, I’ve got professional development figured out on my own time.
- magashna 7y ago
  The presumption was that it's sexist to assume you can't talk code with young women. I don't want to talk code with anyone 99% of my off time. But to say the reasoning is sexist is untrue.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- username90 7y ago
  > But why talk shop on a date at all though? Because lots of programmers loves to talk about code? > A shared niche interest is not sufficient basis for a good relationship. Then what is a good basis for a relationship? A shared interest in ubiquitous interests like food, blockbusters or travel? I don't think that is much better. > I’m a woman in tech and I don’t necessarily wanna talk code on a first or second date, I’ve got professional development figured out on my own time. Good for you, not everyone feels like that though.
babadabada 7y ago
> I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code with most young women. I dare you to go to an average bar or club and try to talk about code to literally any person.
- magashna 7y ago
  Exactly. The point is it's not sexist.
uwuhn 7y ago
Even in certain parts of SF, which I'd argue is the most engineer-dense part of the US, you can go into an average bar or club and discover that most of the men aren't interested in talking about code either.

leetcrew 7y ago

the wording was sort of clumsy, but this is not a very charitable take. most people (men and women) really don't want to talk in depth about code or any other of your specific interests.

cocomittens 7y ago

Same. Though I do have to admit the gender ratio is skewed a bit at my company you can count on one hand the amount of female engineers while there is 100+ male ones. They even changed the female bathroom to be 2 male ones but left us a couple fancy individual ones which I'm fine with.

SkyBelow 7y ago

How? Most people don't want to talk code. Thus, given a demographic breakdown that relates neither positively nor negatively with talking code, one can assume the general pattern applies. Most old people don't want to talk code. Most young people don't want to talk code. Most left handed people don't want to talk code. None of these are discriminating. They are stating that a pattern true of the general population also applies to a demographic partition of the population.

babadabada 7y ago
How? Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do. Especially given the excessive amount of nonsense women in tech (and not in tech) have to deal with on a daily basis. Talk like this leads to women feeling excluded from the tech community. Also, specifically calling out "young women" as not being interested in tech really makes a lot of assumptions. Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves. Most women I know will happily talk about tech stuff with me, so maybe your approach is wrong.
- x220 7y ago
  Do you never make generalizations or broad assumptions?
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  >Because making broad assumptions about 50% of the population isn't a cool thing to do. Is it that those assumptions are not cool to make about 100% of the population either? Is it wrong of me to assume that the average person does not want to talk about code? Because if it isn't wrong to make the assumption about the average person, but it is wrong to make it about some subset, then isn't that, at its very core, treating that demographic different than the average? >Generally, people will talk about most topics - even if they aren't passionate about those topics themselves. Yes, most people will engage in enough conversation to be polite. But there is a significant difference between talking about something a person cares about and them politely carrying on a conversation they aren't interested in. These are not the same behavior and do not generally result in the same outcome . And none of this has to do with gender as I notice this when talking with friends of either gender.

larnmar 7y ago

Does being sexist make it untrue? Are truth and sexistness orthogonal axes? If you had to choose between saying something true but sexist and non-sexist but untrue, which would you pick?