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Sigh… if women wanted to be developers they would become developers. Almost all the successful developers I know started creating software (or at least wanted

by kondro 14y ago

Sigh… if women wanted to be developers they would become developers. Almost all the successful developers I know started creating software (or at least wanted to make computers do things that they weren't immediately able to do) at a young age. Even you believe it is an issue (and I don't know why it is necessary that 50% of all developers need to be women), this isn't a problem you can fix by talking to a bunch of adults about how to get a career in IT. Now, part of a lack of women in IT could have to do with gender stereotyping at a young age, but I do not believe that IT is generally negative towards women any more than HR/marketing is negative towards men. PRO TIP: If you are told you're a crap developer, it's not because you're a woman, it's because you're a crap developer. If you think you deserve some type of different treatment because of your genitalia, you're part of the problem.

tanglisha 14y ago
Disclaimer: I'm one of the people on this project. The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. The point is to help women that are qualified but don't interview well or know how to deal with some of the issues unique to women that either raise eyebrows or can cause confusion in an interview. The women we're targeting include recent graduates, those who left the field for a few months or years to have babies or take care of sick family members, and women who may have been driven out of other positions by sexual harassment (nobody wants a troublemaker, and they do always ask why you left your previous position).
- kondro 14y ago
  The trouble is, none of this (with the exception of childbirth, and there are plenty of stay-at-home Dads) is gender-specific. Unfortunately, all continuing to enforce how special women are (either positively or negatively, in this case) is to keep women thinking they need specialised tools to succeed. As a man, no one taught me how to interview well, or come back to the workforce after taking an extended break to care for someone else, or to be driven out of a position due to bullying (much more common than sexual harassment because it is much subtler). Why do you feel the need to single-out women for such general issues?
  - jordo37 14y ago
    1) First, I am speaking from an assumption I hold that hiring people to work for you of all stripes, which means moving beyond the cis-white-males that are more common, leads to better teams, better products and better execution. 2) I usually think about non-standard channels for hiring, or assistance/boosting programs such as this focused on women (as one example of minorities in the tech field) because almost all of industry is subtly or not so subtly biased towards the majority. The ways you relax with coworkers, the non-programming personal attributes that are assessed in interviews, the similarity bias interviewers have to pick people like themselves. These are not intentional acts of sexism, but are nonetheless prevalent.
  - tanglisha 14y ago
    Women and men are raised differently. Things that come natural to you, having been raised male, do not come naturally to a large number of women. Examples include how to make eye contact in an interview and how to shake hands properly. It is very common for women to be raised with an attitude of quietly waiting to be noticed, rather than pointing out their good traits and skills. This can leave them a bit lost when it comes to an interview, which is essentially the time to brag. Aside from childbirth itself, women are far more likely to be single parents than men are, and are normally the ones to stay home with sick children, especially when there is a long-term disease involved. Many women end up dealing with multiple name changes, across degrees and sometimes projects. Of course not all women lack these skills, we would never pretend that to be the case. But the ones that do are at a distinct disadvantage, and there are more of them out there than you realize. Who would you turn to if you didn't even know that your handshake felt like a dead fish and you never once made eye contact with the hiring manager? That kind of feedback doesn't exist after interviews.
    - kondro 14y ago
      For each of these issues I can come up with a counter-point but it won't really solve anything. I agree that having this information available is a positive thing. Limiting it to either women, or even women in IT seems to be part of the problem (not the solution), in my opinion. By all means, market a generic series at women who may be having these problems, but I fail to see how limiting the audience to ONLY women stands up for equality.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  As kondro said, you should definitely consider aiming such a project at all genders. Of course you need a selling point and if that's "getting more women into tech" then so be it, but your project could provide huge value to both women and men. From your description it sounds great.
  - tanglisha 14y ago
    We will not turn men away, and they are of course welcome to the information that we're going to put out. We chose women because that's what we are and because we wanted to target some of the issues specific to women. A LOT of the information we will be putting out will apply to both genders.
- Joeboy 14y ago
  > The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. That seems like a shame. A lot is said about the awfulness of tech culture for women. I think it would be good to see more made of the upsides (the money's good, the hours can be convenient, and most of aren't actually as awful as we're made out to be).
  - tanglisha 14y ago
    That's what we'll be talking about at GeekGirlCon. We can't fit everything cool into every project :)
oellegaard 14y ago
I couldn't agree more. I had this discussion with several people during Djangocon EU, where we had several talks at the conference about women in the community. People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  > People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code. Actually, no. People are people. We are not abstract logic machines, disinterested minds floating across a sea of pure symbolic manipulation. It really bugs me when software people have this subtle arrogance that human fallibility is something that happens to other people. Oh other people can be biased or form toxic norms, but not us, we're an elite subculture.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- araneae 14y ago
  As a female Django dev, I'm glad I wasn't there. That would have made me feel extremely unwelcome.
jacques_chester 14y ago
Let me see if I understand you correctly. Women are raised differently. Clearly their fault. Women are treated differently just because they are women. Clearly their fault. The industry shows a universal shortage of women. It couldn't possibly be because of strawman-punching attitudes like yours. Clearly their fault. In other contexts this is known as "blaming the victim" and it is generally considered to be a) piss-poor reasoning and b) even offensive.

by kondro 14y ago

tanglisha 14y ago

Disclaimer: I'm one of the people on this project. The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. The point is to help women that are qualified but don't interview well or know how to deal with some of the issues unique to women that either raise eyebrows or can cause confusion in an interview. The women we're targeting include recent graduates, those who left the field for a few months or years to have babies or take care of sick family members, and women who may have been driven out of other positions by sexual harassment (nobody wants a troublemaker, and they do always ask why you left your previous position).

kondro 14y ago
The trouble is, none of this (with the exception of childbirth, and there are plenty of stay-at-home Dads) is gender-specific. Unfortunately, all continuing to enforce how special women are (either positively or negatively, in this case) is to keep women thinking they need specialised tools to succeed. As a man, no one taught me how to interview well, or come back to the workforce after taking an extended break to care for someone else, or to be driven out of a position due to bullying (much more common than sexual harassment because it is much subtler). Why do you feel the need to single-out women for such general issues?
- jordo37 14y ago
  1) First, I am speaking from an assumption I hold that hiring people to work for you of all stripes, which means moving beyond the cis-white-males that are more common, leads to better teams, better products and better execution. 2) I usually think about non-standard channels for hiring, or assistance/boosting programs such as this focused on women (as one example of minorities in the tech field) because almost all of industry is subtly or not so subtly biased towards the majority. The ways you relax with coworkers, the non-programming personal attributes that are assessed in interviews, the similarity bias interviewers have to pick people like themselves. These are not intentional acts of sexism, but are nonetheless prevalent.
- tanglisha 14y ago
  Women and men are raised differently. Things that come natural to you, having been raised male, do not come naturally to a large number of women. Examples include how to make eye contact in an interview and how to shake hands properly. It is very common for women to be raised with an attitude of quietly waiting to be noticed, rather than pointing out their good traits and skills. This can leave them a bit lost when it comes to an interview, which is essentially the time to brag. Aside from childbirth itself, women are far more likely to be single parents than men are, and are normally the ones to stay home with sick children, especially when there is a long-term disease involved. Many women end up dealing with multiple name changes, across degrees and sometimes projects. Of course not all women lack these skills, we would never pretend that to be the case. But the ones that do are at a distinct disadvantage, and there are more of them out there than you realize. Who would you turn to if you didn't even know that your handshake felt like a dead fish and you never once made eye contact with the hiring manager? That kind of feedback doesn't exist after interviews.
  - kondro 14y ago
    For each of these issues I can come up with a counter-point but it won't really solve anything. I agree that having this information available is a positive thing. Limiting it to either women, or even women in IT seems to be part of the problem (not the solution), in my opinion. By all means, market a generic series at women who may be having these problems, but I fail to see how limiting the audience to ONLY women stands up for equality.
citricsquid 14y ago
As kondro said, you should definitely consider aiming such a project at all genders. Of course you need a selling point and if that's "getting more women into tech" then so be it, but your project could provide huge value to both women and men. From your description it sounds great.
- tanglisha 14y ago
  We will not turn men away, and they are of course welcome to the information that we're going to put out. We chose women because that's what we are and because we wanted to target some of the issues specific to women. A LOT of the information we will be putting out will apply to both genders.
Joeboy 14y ago
> The point of this project is not to convince women to go into tech, that is completely out of scope. That seems like a shame. A lot is said about the awfulness of tech culture for women. I think it would be good to see more made of the upsides (the money's good, the hours can be convenient, and most of aren't actually as awful as we're made out to be).
- tanglisha 14y ago
  That's what we'll be talking about at GeekGirlCon. We can't fit everything cool into every project :)

oellegaard 14y ago

I couldn't agree more. I had this discussion with several people during Djangocon EU, where we had several talks at the conference about women in the community. People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code.

jacques_chester 14y ago
> People doesn't care about gender, they care about good code. Actually, no. People are people. We are not abstract logic machines, disinterested minds floating across a sea of pure symbolic manipulation. It really bugs me when software people have this subtle arrogance that human fallibility is something that happens to other people. Oh other people can be biased or form toxic norms, but not us, we're an elite subculture.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
araneae 14y ago
As a female Django dev, I'm glad I wasn't there. That would have made me feel extremely unwelcome.

jacques_chester 14y ago

Let me see if I understand you correctly. Women are raised differently. Clearly their fault. Women are treated differently just because they are women. Clearly their fault. The industry shows a universal shortage of women. It couldn't possibly be because of strawman-punching attitudes like yours. Clearly their fault. In other contexts this is known as "blaming the victim" and it is generally considered to be a) piss-poor reasoning and b) even offensive.