4 ms·

Except that it is a "club" with absolutely zero obligatory social interaction. I'm self-taught via the internet. On many remote projects, I see neither my clien

Except that it is a "club" with absolutely zero obligatory social interaction. I'm self-taught via the internet. On many remote projects, I see neither my clients nor any coworkers for months. I don't care about meet-ups or conferences. It is really hard to understand what is making it harder for women to do a job like mine. (My guess is that the education <15y/o makes all the difference, because that's when my male programmer friends started being interested in it.) Now if you are talking about programming communities, then I guess I agree. But the bigger question is why so few women are interested in programming in the first place.

solistice 14y ago
"U a gurl on ze interwebs? I call le fake". Maybe it's that kind of attitude. I find it intresting that "No girls on the internet" originally meant "No gender bias on the internet", but the meaning was perverted. But statements like that (I sometimes make them myself in jest, but you never know how the opposite side will interpret it),they just add to the exclusion of girls in programming.
- theorique 14y ago
  My sense is that most of the time people say those things ironically, as well as certain harsher catchphrases. But new people to the "internet culture", or those with less self-confidence, are likely to take it more personally than it's intended. It's a shame that such "silly" things can push people out of good industries, but there you have it. It's not the first or the tenth time someone says something like that, but if a girl gets a "no girls allowed" vibe all the time (implicit or explicit), it takes a will of iron to really resist that kind of environment.
- socillion 14y ago
  That attitude/meme exists because a large portion of people who go out of their way to appear female on the internet are actually male. 5 years ago it was an extremely easy way to get free stuff in games. If you're representing yourself as a girl online, people will assume you're doing that specifically to get preferential treatment - of course stereotypes like that aren't universally true, but enough people do that to reflect negatively on anyone else. edit: this is mostly about gamers.
  - solistice 14y ago
    But then gaming is one of the main ways kids get hooked on computers, and then decide they might want to try out Computer Science. I remember how I was playing Anno 1602 on my Windows 95 machine when I was 8, and how that sooner or later influenced me to start programming.
stcredzero 14y ago
> Except that it is a "club" with absolutely zero obligatory social interaction. That might be a strike against it. If there's only contexts where you're a faceless entity on the other side of the Internet, or you stick out like a sore thumb when you are present in the boy's club, then I could see why some would feel it daunting to get involved. > It is really hard to understand what is making it harder for women to do a job like mine. (My guess is that the education <15y/o makes all the difference, because that's when my male programmer friends started being interested in it.) I've met three different women who started programming in grade school, but who didn't become programmers because they didn't want to.

solistice 14y ago

"U a gurl on ze interwebs? I call le fake". Maybe it's that kind of attitude. I find it intresting that "No girls on the internet" originally meant "No gender bias on the internet", but the meaning was perverted. But statements like that (I sometimes make them myself in jest, but you never know how the opposite side will interpret it),they just add to the exclusion of girls in programming.

theorique 14y ago
My sense is that most of the time people say those things ironically, as well as certain harsher catchphrases. But new people to the "internet culture", or those with less self-confidence, are likely to take it more personally than it's intended. It's a shame that such "silly" things can push people out of good industries, but there you have it. It's not the first or the tenth time someone says something like that, but if a girl gets a "no girls allowed" vibe all the time (implicit or explicit), it takes a will of iron to really resist that kind of environment.
socillion 14y ago
That attitude/meme exists because a large portion of people who go out of their way to appear female on the internet are actually male. 5 years ago it was an extremely easy way to get free stuff in games. If you're representing yourself as a girl online, people will assume you're doing that specifically to get preferential treatment - of course stereotypes like that aren't universally true, but enough people do that to reflect negatively on anyone else. edit: this is mostly about gamers.
- solistice 14y ago
  But then gaming is one of the main ways kids get hooked on computers, and then decide they might want to try out Computer Science. I remember how I was playing Anno 1602 on my Windows 95 machine when I was 8, and how that sooner or later influenced me to start programming.

stcredzero 14y ago

> Except that it is a "club" with absolutely zero obligatory social interaction. That might be a strike against it. If there's only contexts where you're a faceless entity on the other side of the Internet, or you stick out like a sore thumb when you are present in the boy's club, then I could see why some would feel it daunting to get involved. > It is really hard to understand what is making it harder for women to do a job like mine. (My guess is that the education <15y/o makes all the difference, because that's when my male programmer friends started being interested in it.) I've met three different women who started programming in grade school, but who didn't become programmers because they didn't want to.