> I strongly encourage you to expose yourself to people who are not like yourself. I don't hang out with programmers. I live in a council estate in a rough pa

> I strongly encourage you to expose yourself to people who are not like yourself. I don't hang out with programmers. I live in a council estate in a rough part of london. I am fully aware of the world outside tech. Why? because I spend my time trying to unfuck what the council/government are doing to the people around me. I'm going to level with you. why do I want more women in tech? two reasons: 1) I want my daughter to walk into my job and feel at home. I don't want her to be constantly creeped on like my colleagues are now. (or worse just being told they are wrong because they are different) I want them to feel comfortable like I do. 2) I worked at a number of companies where we had almost parity, it was wonderful. Its hard to describe what it was like, the only way I can think of is when your really loud tinnitus suddenly disappears. > Anyone who wants to do it can do it yeah nah. I had to change my accent to get a job. Nobody hires a country bumpkin. I have coached a number of people, I know they are good programmers, excellent communicators, brilliant interviewers. They have been rejected for "culture fit" reasons, because they are brown, have a vagina, or worse still a long name. At one company, my boss overruled my teams hire because they didn't find a candidate attractive enough. We lost a cheap and brilliant engineer because my boss was being a shit. The last point is this: on the minimum wage, in rented accommodation, getting enough time, space and privacy to learn programming is a herculean task. especially if there only one TV, and you can't just shove your pi in at any time.