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It might be slightly odd bringing up the topic of women in programming but in a few decades it might seem archaic that we were even worried about the problem.
by jtchang 14y ago
It might be slightly odd bringing up the topic of women in programming but in a few decades it might seem archaic that we were even worried about the problem.
Kids today (both male and female) grow up with so much technology around them. My bet is that this will drastically influence the number of women entering technology focused career paths in the coming years.
- avar 14y agoI don't think there's any sort of strong a correlation between growing up with something and wanting to work on it professionally. The entire western world has grown up with cars being everywhere for the last 50 years or so, it doesn't seem to have greatly affected the gender ratios in the car mechanic profession.
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- EliRivers 14y agoWomen entering tech is not feminist propaganda. Calling it that does, however, demonstrate your own biases (and that you don't understand the word "feminist" or the word "propaganda".
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- EliRivers 14y ago"women entering tech is indeed not feminist propaganda" Well that's the complete opposite of what you said before. My work here is done. The rest of your comment I won't even bother reading.
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- EliRivers 14y agoFear not; I commend you on recognising that your original comment was flawed and applaud you explicitly acknowledging it.
- andyjohnson0 14y ago@shanelja Can I suggest that you dial-back the anger a bit, both in this comment and your reply to EliRivers. This isn't really the right forum for it. jtchang wasn't making what you characterise as a 'campaign point' or politically motivated 'feminist propaganda', He was just expressing optimism that increasing childhood exposure to technology will result in a more equal gender mix within the tech sector. Thats all. The author of the article is clearly a woman. Roughly half of the children that she talked to will have been female. It is well documented that ideas about traditional gender norms, along with other social factors, have historically discouraged women and girls from pursuing education and careers in technology. jtchang is entitled to make a wider related point here that links gender with the use of technology in education to speculate about a future where this may change - even if that wasn't the aim of the article or its author. Thats all he was doing, and HN is a place where he should be able to do it.
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoThe proportion of women in software development has actually been falling since the 1980s. It's not entirely clear why this is, but the rampant sexism in software development that is so painfully evident in HN commentary is surely an important contributing factor.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI don't see much sexism on here and the stuff that I do see looks like obvious trolling. I do sometimes see people accused of being sexist for applying any skeptisism to "all men in tech are sexist pigs" articles.
- untog 14y agoSadly, one of the reasons that you don't see much sexism on HN is that numerous articles about sexism in the industry are flagged as soon as they arrive on the home page, and get removed fron the site. It's quite depressing.
- jiggy2011 14y agoIn my experience at least a couple of posts about sexism in tech make it to the front page every month. I guess they get flagged because there's really not much you can say about these posts. They are usually something like "I was at a conference and someone commented on my boobs". Well ok, that guy is probably an asshole but most people on HN probably don't go around doing that. It would be an interesting story if there was some evidence of tech companies deliberately deciding not to hire women or allowing unchecked sexual harassment in the workplace.
- scott_s 14y agoThose stories are about culture, which is why it's still important even if the majority of guys don't do it. And you are not being charitable in your characterization of them.