5 ms·

I think this argument falls flat on the face when people just do things they enjoy, like they might just enjoy programming. Do you really need permission to get

by Tichy 14y ago

I think this argument falls flat on the face when people just do things they enjoy, like they might just enjoy programming. Do you really need permission to get into programming? I don't think so. On the internet, nobody even knows your skin color. If you like programming, just do it. When most of us started, it wasn't a trendy thing to do, we just did it because we enjoyed it. What I find particularly vexing here: just a couple of years ago everybody was deriding the geeks hacking away on their computer, and didn't want to have anything to do with them. Now that they officially seem to have some fun, suddenly everybody wants in and the same people who made the nerds life hell 20 years ago by bashing them for their nerdiness now start bashing them for their alleged sexism and racism? What is wrong with people simply doing their thing? Why not leave such people alone, or join them if you enjoy the same things? Edit: another thing, it seems this conference was simply organized by some Ruby developers who decided to give it a go. If people have a problem with it's structure, why don't they simply start their own conference?

anonymous3821 14y ago
Do you really need permission to get into programming? If this is the only factor that you think is stopping people from entering programming, then you're seriously mistaken. A quick Google search brings up this: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/hdh9/e-reserves/Williams_-_The_glass_escalator_PDF-1.pdf http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/hdh9/e-reserves/Williams_-_The_glass_... Maybe also try watching this: http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/ http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/ A lot more happens behind the scenes than you seem to know (as indicated by your post.)
- Tichy 14y ago
  I am not an expert on all the issues involved - who is? I think a lot of those studies are quite interesting and might not always say what they seem to say. I only skimmed a bit, for starters, your study seems to be from 1991 (or the women were interviewed up to 1991). Then I only glanced one text snippet where a man says "perhaps because it is so rare for a man to go into that profession, they think I am so special and think more or me". Note that your study is about men in typically female professions. For all I know, the reverse could be true for women in typically male professions. From my own anecdotal experience I think women in IT would get preferred treatment most of the time. Also (anecdote again), we actually chose the kindergarden for our son because they have a male kindergardener in it (I guess that makes me officially sexist), so I confirm the study... Another study that made the rounds recently showed that even women seem to prefer to hire men over women. Sadly it didn't explore possible reasons, and references to motherhood diminishing "work value" were dismissed out of hand. Sorry, no time to watch a movie. Also, I agree that gender issues are complicated, but not necessarily that women get the worse cards. Men and women both face their challenges. Just an example, I happen to think that it is rather cruel that men are automatically expected to work while women raise their kids - it deprives men of one of the most joyful aspects of life. Also, men tend to die 10 years earlier than women on average. Just genes? Or perhaps more pressure and stress? But that is not the main issue for me. I have to say that personally, I have little patience for the woes of employment. That is, I really don't care who gets promoted to what. At least in IT, if you don't like other companies, you can start your own. And 50% of the world are women (more, in fact), so even if men don't want to deal with you (which I doubt), there should be plenty of customers. (That's of course all over simplified...). I don't doubt that there is inequality, but I think there are plenty of ways around it, that are open to everyone.
  - anonymous3821 14y ago
    You don't need to be an expert to know that there's more to the situation than: On the internet, nobody even knows your skin color. I agree with a lot of your points (Google's first search result wasn't the best study I guess :), but I don't think you've spent enough time researching the area to make broad statements: But I think there are plenty of ways around it, that are open to everyone. Is that really true? I'm essentially trying to drive the same point home as anu_gupta.
    - Tichy 14y ago
      I am just making this up on the spot, but as I explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801900 I don't think wage discrimination can be the reason for fewer women/race x people in IT, because discrimination would range across all jobs, so the relative attractiveness of jobs would remain the same. Edit: OK I have to clarify, I think there are certainly situations where you are fucked up. I am glad that I am not living in some dictatorship in the 3rd world, where my best option would be trying to flee the country with a 20% chance of survival. I don't think circumstances in the western world are quite so bad, though. I think there are certainly a lot of jerks, but the place is big enough to avoid them and there are enough non-jerks to do business with. Just my guess, though, obviously I haven't done any studies on it. Also I only know Europe, not the US - but it's supposed to be a free country? I am 100% sure that if you are a woman who can code, you can find employment in this economy.
- mattbriggs 14y ago
  For me personally (working at a ruby startup in Toronto), this is the breakdown of people currently working in dev 1 white female 3 chinese canadian males 1 japanese canadian male 1 korean male 1 russian male (guess he counts as white) 3 white males 1 cuban male We have 5 founders, only one is white, all are male. 2 are on the dev team, one is chinese (CTO), the other white We have interviewed many, many people in the time I have been at the company, to my knowledge only two have been female, one of whom we hired. This is normal in my experience with good shops. If I walk in the door, and it is wall to wall white guys, you are going to have a much harder time selling me on your company. This is regional, anecdotal, etc. I am not saying there is no problem, obviously there is one if we have only ever had 2 women try to get jobs at our company. But here at least, it isn't backroom racism. My guess it has a lot more to do with the boys club feel at pretty much all engineering faculties in north american universities.
anu_gupta 14y ago
> When most of us started, it wasn't a trendy thing to do, we just did it because we enjoyed it. Actually you most likely started because someone you liked or admired, were friends with, were inspired by, or simply thought was cool, was doing it. And that's sort of the point.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Well somebody had to be the first, though? And if it is just about seeing famous people in the media, why not get over yourself and admire somebody who has a different race or gender than you and follow in their steps? I suppose it is more likely to be exposed to it if you are in the right neighborhood, although I don't want to invoke reverse stereotypes? Like I could say "in other neighborhoods people would perhaps be more likely to play basketball than to code", but that seems stupid and also racist? Although I wonder about Playstation reach across communities? At least white girls would seem to have the same odds for being friends with a white male nerd as other white boys, though? So perhaps they were much less likely to admire the nerd, which again was sort of the point I was making, I guess. Don't know much about interracial friendships, where I grew up (Europe) there were not many non-white people when I was young. Again, I am not denying that there might be statistical reasons why some people are more likely to be exposed to computers than others. From that it is a far step to call for affirmative action, though, because over time, those uneven starting points should fade away - at least when we talk about coding. Also, it is nice to worry about, but I have to ask, why should I personally (as an example) have to worry about some kid somewhere else getting into programming? What if I am busy enough with my own problems? I think it is great that some people care about such things and take steps (establish special courses, conferences, advertisements, sponsorships and what not), but I don't think it should be expected from everyone.
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    > Well somebody had to be the first, though? And if it is just about seeing famous people in the media, why not get over yourself and admire somebody who has a different race or gender than you and follow in their steps? Because not being part of the majority can make it feel as though you do not belong in a given career or sphere of human endeavor. Is that really so hard to grasp?

by Tichy 14y ago

anonymous3821 14y ago

Do you really need permission to get into programming? If this is the only factor that you think is stopping people from entering programming, then you're seriously mistaken. A quick Google search brings up this: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/hdh9/e-reserves/Williams_-_The_glass_escalator_PDF-1.pdf http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/hdh9/e-reserves/Williams_-_The_glass_... Maybe also try watching this: http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/ http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/ A lot more happens behind the scenes than you seem to know (as indicated by your post.)

Tichy 14y ago
I am not an expert on all the issues involved - who is? I think a lot of those studies are quite interesting and might not always say what they seem to say. I only skimmed a bit, for starters, your study seems to be from 1991 (or the women were interviewed up to 1991). Then I only glanced one text snippet where a man says "perhaps because it is so rare for a man to go into that profession, they think I am so special and think more or me". Note that your study is about men in typically female professions. For all I know, the reverse could be true for women in typically male professions. From my own anecdotal experience I think women in IT would get preferred treatment most of the time. Also (anecdote again), we actually chose the kindergarden for our son because they have a male kindergardener in it (I guess that makes me officially sexist), so I confirm the study... Another study that made the rounds recently showed that even women seem to prefer to hire men over women. Sadly it didn't explore possible reasons, and references to motherhood diminishing "work value" were dismissed out of hand. Sorry, no time to watch a movie. Also, I agree that gender issues are complicated, but not necessarily that women get the worse cards. Men and women both face their challenges. Just an example, I happen to think that it is rather cruel that men are automatically expected to work while women raise their kids - it deprives men of one of the most joyful aspects of life. Also, men tend to die 10 years earlier than women on average. Just genes? Or perhaps more pressure and stress? But that is not the main issue for me. I have to say that personally, I have little patience for the woes of employment. That is, I really don't care who gets promoted to what. At least in IT, if you don't like other companies, you can start your own. And 50% of the world are women (more, in fact), so even if men don't want to deal with you (which I doubt), there should be plenty of customers. (That's of course all over simplified...). I don't doubt that there is inequality, but I think there are plenty of ways around it, that are open to everyone.
- anonymous3821 14y ago
  You don't need to be an expert to know that there's more to the situation than: On the internet, nobody even knows your skin color. I agree with a lot of your points (Google's first search result wasn't the best study I guess :), but I don't think you've spent enough time researching the area to make broad statements: But I think there are plenty of ways around it, that are open to everyone. Is that really true? I'm essentially trying to drive the same point home as anu_gupta.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    I am just making this up on the spot, but as I explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801900 I don't think wage discrimination can be the reason for fewer women/race x people in IT, because discrimination would range across all jobs, so the relative attractiveness of jobs would remain the same. Edit: OK I have to clarify, I think there are certainly situations where you are fucked up. I am glad that I am not living in some dictatorship in the 3rd world, where my best option would be trying to flee the country with a 20% chance of survival. I don't think circumstances in the western world are quite so bad, though. I think there are certainly a lot of jerks, but the place is big enough to avoid them and there are enough non-jerks to do business with. Just my guess, though, obviously I haven't done any studies on it. Also I only know Europe, not the US - but it's supposed to be a free country? I am 100% sure that if you are a woman who can code, you can find employment in this economy.
mattbriggs 14y ago
For me personally (working at a ruby startup in Toronto), this is the breakdown of people currently working in dev 1 white female 3 chinese canadian males 1 japanese canadian male 1 korean male 1 russian male (guess he counts as white) 3 white males 1 cuban male We have 5 founders, only one is white, all are male. 2 are on the dev team, one is chinese (CTO), the other white We have interviewed many, many people in the time I have been at the company, to my knowledge only two have been female, one of whom we hired. This is normal in my experience with good shops. If I walk in the door, and it is wall to wall white guys, you are going to have a much harder time selling me on your company. This is regional, anecdotal, etc. I am not saying there is no problem, obviously there is one if we have only ever had 2 women try to get jobs at our company. But here at least, it isn't backroom racism. My guess it has a lot more to do with the boys club feel at pretty much all engineering faculties in north american universities.

anu_gupta 14y ago

> When most of us started, it wasn't a trendy thing to do, we just did it because we enjoyed it. Actually you most likely started because someone you liked or admired, were friends with, were inspired by, or simply thought was cool, was doing it. And that's sort of the point.

Tichy 14y ago
Well somebody had to be the first, though? And if it is just about seeing famous people in the media, why not get over yourself and admire somebody who has a different race or gender than you and follow in their steps? I suppose it is more likely to be exposed to it if you are in the right neighborhood, although I don't want to invoke reverse stereotypes? Like I could say "in other neighborhoods people would perhaps be more likely to play basketball than to code", but that seems stupid and also racist? Although I wonder about Playstation reach across communities? At least white girls would seem to have the same odds for being friends with a white male nerd as other white boys, though? So perhaps they were much less likely to admire the nerd, which again was sort of the point I was making, I guess. Don't know much about interracial friendships, where I grew up (Europe) there were not many non-white people when I was young. Again, I am not denying that there might be statistical reasons why some people are more likely to be exposed to computers than others. From that it is a far step to call for affirmative action, though, because over time, those uneven starting points should fade away - at least when we talk about coding. Also, it is nice to worry about, but I have to ask, why should I personally (as an example) have to worry about some kid somewhere else getting into programming? What if I am busy enough with my own problems? I think it is great that some people care about such things and take steps (establish special courses, conferences, advertisements, sponsorships and what not), but I don't think it should be expected from everyone.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  > Well somebody had to be the first, though? And if it is just about seeing famous people in the media, why not get over yourself and admire somebody who has a different race or gender than you and follow in their steps? Because not being part of the majority can make it feel as though you do not belong in a given career or sphere of human endeavor. Is that really so hard to grasp?