4 ms·

Hack of The Sexes

17 points by instakill 14y ago

Cabal 14y ago
What a travesty.
whalesalad 14y ago
I think this is pretty cool. It's a creative spin on the state of gender inequality. God only knows how it will turn out ... but if everyone plays nice and there aren't too many alpha personalities, it would probably end up being a pretty cool experience. Humility is key in something like this. I'd just plant a ref in the middle of the room and anyone who can't be humble in front of the opposite sex would get ejected instantly as though a giant claw came out of the sky and picked 'em up. Like a screaming toddler: zero-tolerance. You're gonna cry and whine again? Boom! There goes your night light, now go back to bed and cut it out. I'd have a lot of fun in something like this. We're wired differently so there'd certainly be some unique solutions on both side of the chromosome. Whenever I make a big $$$ bet with a good friend, I can never accept their cash. It feels bad. At the end of the day, as the winner, it doesn't really matter that I won. The pure fact that there was a contest between us and the friendly trash talking is all that matters. Hopefully this ends up being kind of like that. Friendly trash talking, hacking on fun projects, and like I said, no extreme faux-alpha personalities who can't deal with losing. We all know there is no winner in man vs woman. To quote the Bahai faith: The world of humanity is possessed of two wings: the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly. Until womankind reaches the same degree as man, until she enjoys the same arena of activity, extraordinary attainment for humanity will not be realized; humanity cannot wing its way to heights of real attainment. When the two wings . . . become equivalent in strength, enjoying the same prerogatives, the flight of man will be exceedingly lofty and extraordinary.
anextio 14y ago
> The gender battle has existed for as long as we have. An unending competition as to which sex is better. This is no different, we're just changing the rules and bringing in a few different twists with this contest. Wow. No thank you. This kind of thing might be fun and innocent if we were not already living in an industry rife with sexism, inequality, and bro-culture rudeness.
- alexanderh 14y ago
  I do agree, but also feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing. Sometimes people need a sense of competition to step up to the plate. But yea... This is a little too close to being distasteful, considering the way things are. Its a slippery slope though.
  - cjbprime 14y ago
    > I do agree, but also feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing. Why assume the only effect could be a positive one? It's possible for an idea to discourage women from joining in on things, and furthermore encourage women who've already joined in to feel demotivated. This seems like it might well be one of those ideas. Also, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicians_syllogism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicians_syllogism.
    - lk145 14y ago
      I can't speak for all women, but as a female developer, I definitely find this event discouraging. I hate being seen as "female dev" instead of just a dev. The last thing I want to do is go to an event that is based on this distinction and could possibly be used as evidence that I am less skilled at my job because of my gender. This is why I only feel truly comfortable at all-women hackathons. It's the only place where I can believe with reasonable certainty that if I mess up it won't lead to a generalization like this: http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/
  - antihero 14y ago
    > feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing Not really, unconsidered, blunt, ignorant attempts are as likely to as much damage as they would good.
  - Geekette 14y ago
    That is NOT encouragement in any way. a)I appreciate competition as motivation and this ain't it; I prefer competing in such arenas as a person, not as a woman. b) And for other women whom may cite intimidation as one of the issues that keeps them out of tech fields, this is hardly a way to lure them in.
redmattred 14y ago
This seems counterproductive.
krakensden 14y ago
"Pitting", not "pinning". Seriously different meaning there.
akavi 14y ago
I'm going to refrain from passing judgment, since the link is so thin on details, but I'm seriously having a hard time thinking up ways that this could be anything but a terrible idea. Any help?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
obviouslygreen 14y ago
I can see this being pretty fun for those involved, as those who aren't will almost certainly take it too seriously... but I have to say, the use of "pinning" instead of "pitting" in the headline gave me a very adolescent chuckle. Perhaps this is someone else's vernacular, because in mine, that usage -- correct or not -- is pretty amusing.
rjknight 14y ago
I don't find the gender aspect quite as off-putting as I do the following things: * No clear rules are stated - how many people can participate, how big can teams be, are there just two teams? What if more women participate than men, or vice versa? * What will the judging criteria be? Who will be the judge(s)? * What kind of 'hack' are we talking about? Straight-up coding competitions have been around for a while now and there are well-established principles of how to judge the winners, but this seems to be a competition based around the loosest possible interpretation of 'hack'. * What prize, if any, will be awarded and to whom? * If I want to compete, what do I need? Skills? Equipment? Basically, it feels like the only idea they've got is the 'sexes' part, with no real details on what the 'battle' is all about. It's really impossible to evaluate whether it's a good idea with such little information.
crabasa 14y ago
I am very confused about this event. My initial reaction was horror, and I think Twitter agreed [1]. Then I looked into who was behind this, assuming it was a hoax. One of the organizers appears [2] to be Sarah Herbert [3] the CEO of Curious Pixel, a brand/design shop in Kansas City. It seems that Sarah and Curious Pixel are very supportive of women in technology [4]. So, I think this is just a sad case of a well-meaning person creating a tone-deaf message and ultimately being devoured by the Internet. [1] https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=hackofthesexes&src=typd https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=hackofthesexes&src... [2] https://twitter.com/hackofthesexes/status/300007467759304706 https://twitter.com/hackofthesexes/status/300007467759304706 [3] https://twitter.com/SarahSHebert https://twitter.com/SarahSHebert [4] http://www.curiouspixel.com/investing-wisely-in-the-success-of-women-and-girls/ http://www.curiouspixel.com/investing-wisely-in-the-success-...
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  A predictable response, but while I see the point regarding the "tone-deafness" of the message, I think it's also indicative that the attitude behind our "culture" has gone too far towards "holy crap anything that could possibly make anyone feel left out or even appear discriminatory to even the most oversensitive individuals must be utterly terrible and unconscionable." Your research, to me, makes that a pretty safe bet. A woman who's big on females in tech helps organize it, and without bothering to find this out, everyone screams horrible endemic life-ending sexism at the sight of it. Oops. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't decry discrimination. I am suggesting we should think and ask before we decide to burn people at the stake for attempting to have a little fun at the expense of a topic some people can't seem to deal with in a moderate and rational manner.
  - Geekette 14y ago
    The fact that a woman who otherwise champion females in tech was behind the poster does not excuse it. Sexism, like many complex issues exists as a continuum, degrees of which can be perpetrated by anyone, including women.
  - erikpukinskis 14y ago
barakm 14y ago
Okay, sit down, and let me elaborate on why this is a bad idea. I was going to post a kneejerk reaction, namely "This idea is bad and you should feel bad", but that wouldn't help the discussion. So let me assume you mean the best. Let me assume you want to encourage a better gender balance. And let me tell you that this is a terrible way to go about it. Aside from the points elaborated in other comments -- and let me stress the "industry rife with sexism, inequality, and bro-culture rudeness" -- this flies in the face of the hacker ethic. To wit: * Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position Now, I can hear the defense mechanism riling up right now: "But wait," you say, "we're not judging participants based on their gender, we're just teaming them up that way. The judging will be fair!" And I believe you believe that, with the best of intentions. Nonetheless, you've automatically broken the blindness and impartiality of the judges, simply because they know that it's an uneven distribution. Think of it like a scientific experiment where everyone knows where the placebo is. It doesn't matter who wins; everyone loses, because one side will claim the other got some special consideration. Imagine if you did the same thing, only with college-grads vs. self-taught hackers. If the judge is from Stanford, you lose. At best, this will fizzle, or go off unremarkably. At worst, you're actively making worse exactly the problem you're trying to fix. At best, this is a trite idea ('boys vs girls' is overdone, schoolyard, and simplistic). At worst, it's actively discriminatory. Be more creative. You recognize a problem, but this isn't the answer.
drakeandrews 14y ago
Oh gods. Oh, dear, gods. First things first, the word they're looking for is gender, not sex. Sex is one's biology and matters in a handful of cases (such as certain medical procedures and intimate relationships) where as gender is how one presents one's self. Gender is the thing that they are attempting to differentiate by here. And there aren't just two either. What is a potential participant is neither male nor female? Or both? Congrats, you've just managed to alienate a whole bunch of people who've just had it reinforced that they've no place in society. Second, the reaction to a "gender battle" shouldn't be something to be applauded or goaded on. Placing people in a group based on their gender and pitting them against each other is at best going to affect the decisions of the judges based on pre-existing prejudcies (conscious or otherwise) and at worst reinforce the ideals that lead to comments like "Why are you out of the kitchen?". So yeah. This is a bad thing and the organisers should feel bad.
Ghandi 14y ago
It's Gordon Ramsay's campaign to 'Get Women Back in the Kitchen' applied to code.
jusben1369 14y ago
You just know a transgender dev is going to show up to try and throw the entire event for a loop.
antihero 14y ago
Completely ignorant of trans/genderqueer people and supportive of the oppressive notion of a gender binary. Just because a woman organised it it doesn't make it okay.
theorique 14y ago
Here's a thought: Stereotyping in broad strokes, men tend to be more "competition oriented" than women. Men are already well-represented in hacking and tech. Therefore, the more aggressive and competitive sex is also likely to be more numerous at this event. So how is this likely to "encourage" females to participate in technology? If anything, it draws more attention to their sex and their "odd man out" status. This is not necessarily a good thing.

17 points by instakill 14y ago

Cabal 14y ago

What a travesty.

I think this is pretty cool. It's a creative spin on the state of gender inequality. God only knows how it will turn out ... but if everyone plays nice and there aren't too many alpha personalities, it would probably end up being a pretty cool experience. Humility is key in something like this. I'd just plant a ref in the middle of the room and anyone who can't be humble in front of the opposite sex would get ejected instantly as though a giant claw came out of the sky and picked 'em up. Like a screaming toddler: zero-tolerance. You're gonna cry and whine again? Boom! There goes your night light, now go back to bed and cut it out. I'd have a lot of fun in something like this. We're wired differently so there'd certainly be some unique solutions on both side of the chromosome. Whenever I make a big $$$ bet with a good friend, I can never accept their cash. It feels bad. At the end of the day, as the winner, it doesn't really matter that I won. The pure fact that there was a contest between us and the friendly trash talking is all that matters. Hopefully this ends up being kind of like that. Friendly trash talking, hacking on fun projects, and like I said, no extreme faux-alpha personalities who can't deal with losing. We all know there is no winner in man vs woman. To quote the Bahai faith: The world of humanity is possessed of two wings: the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly. Until womankind reaches the same degree as man, until she enjoys the same arena of activity, extraordinary attainment for humanity will not be realized; humanity cannot wing its way to heights of real attainment. When the two wings . . . become equivalent in strength, enjoying the same prerogatives, the flight of man will be exceedingly lofty and extraordinary.

anextio 14y ago

> The gender battle has existed for as long as we have. An unending competition as to which sex is better. This is no different, we're just changing the rules and bringing in a few different twists with this contest. Wow. No thank you. This kind of thing might be fun and innocent if we were not already living in an industry rife with sexism, inequality, and bro-culture rudeness.

alexanderh 14y ago
I do agree, but also feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing. Sometimes people need a sense of competition to step up to the plate. But yea... This is a little too close to being distasteful, considering the way things are. Its a slippery slope though.
- cjbprime 14y ago
  > I do agree, but also feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing. Why assume the only effect could be a positive one? It's possible for an idea to discourage women from joining in on things, and furthermore encourage women who've already joined in to feel demotivated. This seems like it might well be one of those ideas. Also, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicians_syllogism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicians_syllogism.
  - lk145 14y ago
    I can't speak for all women, but as a female developer, I definitely find this event discouraging. I hate being seen as "female dev" instead of just a dev. The last thing I want to do is go to an event that is based on this distinction and could possibly be used as evidence that I am less skilled at my job because of my gender. This is why I only feel truly comfortable at all-women hackathons. It's the only place where I can believe with reasonable certainty that if I mess up it won't lead to a generalization like this: http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/
- antihero 14y ago
  > feel like ANYTHING AT ALL to encourage more women to join in on things like this is a good thing Not really, unconsidered, blunt, ignorant attempts are as likely to as much damage as they would good.
- Geekette 14y ago
  That is NOT encouragement in any way. a)I appreciate competition as motivation and this ain't it; I prefer competing in such arenas as a person, not as a woman. b) And for other women whom may cite intimidation as one of the issues that keeps them out of tech fields, this is hardly a way to lure them in.

redmattred 14y ago

This seems counterproductive.

krakensden 14y ago

"Pitting", not "pinning". Seriously different meaning there.

akavi 14y ago

I'm going to refrain from passing judgment, since the link is so thin on details, but I'm seriously having a hard time thinking up ways that this could be anything but a terrible idea. Any help?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

obviouslygreen 14y ago

I can see this being pretty fun for those involved, as those who aren't will almost certainly take it too seriously... but I have to say, the use of "pinning" instead of "pitting" in the headline gave me a very adolescent chuckle. Perhaps this is someone else's vernacular, because in mine, that usage -- correct or not -- is pretty amusing.

rjknight 14y ago

I don't find the gender aspect quite as off-putting as I do the following things: * No clear rules are stated - how many people can participate, how big can teams be, are there just two teams? What if more women participate than men, or vice versa? * What will the judging criteria be? Who will be the judge(s)? * What kind of 'hack' are we talking about? Straight-up coding competitions have been around for a while now and there are well-established principles of how to judge the winners, but this seems to be a competition based around the loosest possible interpretation of 'hack'. * What prize, if any, will be awarded and to whom? * If I want to compete, what do I need? Skills? Equipment? Basically, it feels like the only idea they've got is the 'sexes' part, with no real details on what the 'battle' is all about. It's really impossible to evaluate whether it's a good idea with such little information.

crabasa 14y ago

I am very confused about this event. My initial reaction was horror, and I think Twitter agreed [1]. Then I looked into who was behind this, assuming it was a hoax. One of the organizers appears [2] to be Sarah Herbert [3] the CEO of Curious Pixel, a brand/design shop in Kansas City. It seems that Sarah and Curious Pixel are very supportive of women in technology [4]. So, I think this is just a sad case of a well-meaning person creating a tone-deaf message and ultimately being devoured by the Internet. [1] https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=hackofthesexes&src=typd https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=hackofthesexes&src... [2] https://twitter.com/hackofthesexes/status/300007467759304706 https://twitter.com/hackofthesexes/status/300007467759304706 [3] https://twitter.com/SarahSHebert https://twitter.com/SarahSHebert [4] http://www.curiouspixel.com/investing-wisely-in-the-success-of-women-and-girls/ http://www.curiouspixel.com/investing-wisely-in-the-success-...

obviouslygreen 14y ago
A predictable response, but while I see the point regarding the "tone-deafness" of the message, I think it's also indicative that the attitude behind our "culture" has gone too far towards "holy crap anything that could possibly make anyone feel left out or even appear discriminatory to even the most oversensitive individuals must be utterly terrible and unconscionable." Your research, to me, makes that a pretty safe bet. A woman who's big on females in tech helps organize it, and without bothering to find this out, everyone screams horrible endemic life-ending sexism at the sight of it. Oops. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't decry discrimination. I am suggesting we should think and ask before we decide to burn people at the stake for attempting to have a little fun at the expense of a topic some people can't seem to deal with in a moderate and rational manner.
- Geekette 14y ago
  The fact that a woman who otherwise champion females in tech was behind the poster does not excuse it. Sexism, like many complex issues exists as a continuum, degrees of which can be perpetrated by anyone, including women.
- erikpukinskis 14y ago

barakm 14y ago

Okay, sit down, and let me elaborate on why this is a bad idea. I was going to post a kneejerk reaction, namely "This idea is bad and you should feel bad", but that wouldn't help the discussion. So let me assume you mean the best. Let me assume you want to encourage a better gender balance. And let me tell you that this is a terrible way to go about it. Aside from the points elaborated in other comments -- and let me stress the "industry rife with sexism, inequality, and bro-culture rudeness" -- this flies in the face of the hacker ethic. To wit: * Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position Now, I can hear the defense mechanism riling up right now: "But wait," you say, "we're not judging participants based on their gender, we're just teaming them up that way. The judging will be fair!" And I believe you believe that, with the best of intentions. Nonetheless, you've automatically broken the blindness and impartiality of the judges, simply because they know that it's an uneven distribution. Think of it like a scientific experiment where everyone knows where the placebo is. It doesn't matter who wins; everyone loses, because one side will claim the other got some special consideration. Imagine if you did the same thing, only with college-grads vs. self-taught hackers. If the judge is from Stanford, you lose. At best, this will fizzle, or go off unremarkably. At worst, you're actively making worse exactly the problem you're trying to fix. At best, this is a trite idea ('boys vs girls' is overdone, schoolyard, and simplistic). At worst, it's actively discriminatory. Be more creative. You recognize a problem, but this isn't the answer.

drakeandrews 14y ago

Oh gods. Oh, dear, gods. First things first, the word they're looking for is gender, not sex. Sex is one's biology and matters in a handful of cases (such as certain medical procedures and intimate relationships) where as gender is how one presents one's self. Gender is the thing that they are attempting to differentiate by here. And there aren't just two either. What is a potential participant is neither male nor female? Or both? Congrats, you've just managed to alienate a whole bunch of people who've just had it reinforced that they've no place in society. Second, the reaction to a "gender battle" shouldn't be something to be applauded or goaded on. Placing people in a group based on their gender and pitting them against each other is at best going to affect the decisions of the judges based on pre-existing prejudcies (conscious or otherwise) and at worst reinforce the ideals that lead to comments like "Why are you out of the kitchen?". So yeah. This is a bad thing and the organisers should feel bad.

Ghandi 14y ago

It's Gordon Ramsay's campaign to 'Get Women Back in the Kitchen' applied to code.

jusben1369 14y ago

You just know a transgender dev is going to show up to try and throw the entire event for a loop.

antihero 14y ago

Completely ignorant of trans/genderqueer people and supportive of the oppressive notion of a gender binary. Just because a woman organised it it doesn't make it okay.

theorique 14y ago

Here's a thought: Stereotyping in broad strokes, men tend to be more "competition oriented" than women. Men are already well-represented in hacking and tech. Therefore, the more aggressive and competitive sex is also likely to be more numerous at this event. So how is this likely to "encourage" females to participate in technology? If anything, it draws more attention to their sex and their "odd man out" status. This is not necessarily a good thing.