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I am a man. These initiatives will simply not work. Imagine "Men Nurse." Many women SIMPLY do not code for the same reason many men do not code. Most of us we
by rokhayakebe 13y ago
I am a man.
These initiatives will simply not work. Imagine "Men Nurse."
Many women SIMPLY do not code for the same reason many men do not code. Most of us were not exposed to the science as kids, hence step 1 is to make Programming mandatory. Note I say programming and not C.S.. I am an amateur programmer and I can say wit confidence that this is as fundamental as basic arithmetic. Full stop.
I frankly wish they shut down "Girls Who Code" entirely and all the likes. Instead we can put our efforts into teaching everyone to code: "We Code." Because once someone does something as simple as print (2+2)-(3-2) or print $first_name + $last_name or (my favorite) <html><h1>The Website of Me</h1><p>My name is Joanna. This is my first web page.<img src='..'></p></html>, once they do this, there is simply no going back for them.
- tptacek 13y agoThere are tons of male nurses. 'iamelgringo, a former top contributor here, is an ER nurse. Back of the envelope: There are ~24,000,000 people aged 18-24 in the US. Assume half are female: there are ~12,000,000 "girls who might code" in the US. Of these, 12.6% are African American. There are ~1,440,00 "black girls who might code" in the US. There are ~400,000 people who live in Tulsa. There have probably been several "Tulsa Codes!" events in the past couple years, but either way just stipulate that it could happen. A "Tulsa Codes!" event addresses just 400,000 people. For logistical and practical reasons, that event locks out an overwhelmingly huge number of potential beneficiaries. But nobody has a problem with "Tulsa Codes!". Threads aren't full of people ranting about "third wave feminism" when they do.
- city41 13y ago9.6% of all RNs are male [0] Why is there not a male nurse initiative? Or male elementary teacher initiative[1]? I have to admit, I am strongly against things like "Girls who code". If there truly are issues in our culture that prevent girls from looking into coding, then absolutely let's get rid of those as best we can. But a girl can look into and explore coding just as easily as a boy can. There's really nothing stopping them. I have a few male nurse friends too. Nothing stopped them either, they simply found nursing interesting and pursued it. There might simply be fewer female coders because they tend to not be interested in this profession, same as male nurses. [0] -- http://www.minoritynurse.com/minority-nursing-statistics http://www.minoritynurse.com/minority-nursing-statistics [1] -- http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers
- smtddr 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6530237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6530237
- gfodor 13y agoI don't know why you're getting downvoted. The question you ask is a good one, though you are jumping to some conclusions. I think it may very well be that there should be a "male nurse initiative", or at least that the lack of one doesn't somehow dictate the ethics and obligations of our field.
- city41 13y agoPossibly I am jumping to conclusions. I have nothing against females in tech. I strongly believe anyone should be able to pursue whatever they want. My local hacker's space hosts coding dojos to teach children how to code. There is no special treatment given to girls in these. Everyone is welcome and encouraged. The dojo organizers are conscious of making sure there is a good representation of female teachers/mentors in the program. That is a different -- and more effective -- approach to this issue. The difference seems subtle, yet it's key. I'm male and I knit. It's something my Mom taught me when I was young and it's stuck with me. Yet I hate when my gender is made such a big deal here. I'm not a male knitter, I'm just a knitter. I don't want to talk about my gender and how great it is I have pursued this hobby, I want to talk about the hobby. I can't help but think females would feel similar to programs like this.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 13y agoThat's 3x as many as there were 20 years ago. What does the trendline look like for software development? (I don't know; it's a serious question).
- girvo 13y agoFor graduates, as a percentage, it's down. That's all I've seen numbers for anyway.
- pflats 13y agoIf by tons, you mean 9%, then yes, there are tons of male nurses. Many are nurse anesthetists, which isn't what most people think of when they think "nurse". (Anesthetists also earn an extra hundred grand a year, on average.) http://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupations.pdf http://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupat...
- tptacek 13y agoIt is not helpful that "nursing" is an explicitly gendered term. And despite that, the fraction of nurses who are male is climbing steadily.
- baddox 13y agoIn what way is "nursing" explicitly gendered? Obviously one of its definitions necessarily refers specifically to women, e.g. "wet nurse," but that's the only one, and that's simply an issue of mammary glands. I was under the impression that the word comes from a contraction of the word "nourish" and doesn't have any explicit gender association.
- tptacek 13y ago"The first instance in English of nurse occurred in the early thirteenth century as the Anglo-Norman nurice, derived from the fifth-century post-Classical Latin nutrice, a wet-nurse."
- crassus 13y agoWhat's the goal? A 50% gender ratio in all fields? Just trying to understand the mindset of a SJW.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoBut Tulsa Codes would exist for logistical and practical reasons (it makes sense to organize people who already live in an area). Girls Code is associated (fairly or not) with an ideological movement to correct for oppression and privilege that exists in our society. People who disagree with this movement will of course post about it when they see these articles.
- tptacek 13y agoYes. Exactly my point. The problem people have with "Girls Code" is that accepting it requires them to accept that women have been at some point treated unfairly.
- stirno 13y agoI personally have no issue with "Black Girls Code" or any other groups like that -- mostly because any work done to educate more people (of any gender, race, sexuality, whatever) about what we do is a positive. Moreover its important that people who decide to contribute in this way (teachers, mentors, etc) feel like they are helping a group they care deeply about and/or can identify with. Having said that I do wish we had more events targeting all kinds of youth with the goal of changing the mentality of future developers/engineers. If they learn in diverse groups (including some level of age diversity, preferably) I feel they'd have a better shot at creating a 'new normal' for the future.
- hacker789 13y agoLet's look at what you said above. > But nobody has a problem with "Tulsa Codes!". Threads aren't full of people ranting about "third wave feminism" when they do. If young Tulsa residents were more already more wealthy and more educated than young Oklahoma City residents, people would certainly complain about "Tulsa activists" if: 1. Companies were demonized by "Tulsa activists" for hiring young people from Oklahoma City for tech jobs, or 2. Mobs of internet "Tulsa activists" bullied people who dared to suggest that we shouldn't be spending extra money trying to further the achievement gap between young people from Tulsa and young people from Oklahoma City, or 3. "Tulsa activists" accused you of hating young people from "Tulsa" if you disagreed with any of their points.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- danso 13y agoYour intentions are good, but in practical terms, you are wrong. The creation of things like "Girls Who Code" is not a statement that this is the way things should be but a statement that this is the way things have to be -- for now. Just about everyone will say -- and do so sincerely -- that they are totally for more females to get into programming, if those females want to be involved. But the problem isn't the individual. It's the institution. The challenges that the most motivated women have faced when entering an ostensibly gender-agnostic situation have been well-documented and talked about...So creating an environment like "Girls Who Code" is a pro-active force, rather than just "let the pieces fall where they may" approach, because people who have tried that have failed. To put it in a non-gendered context, saying that "women who code should just join the field and work their hardest" is like saying, "people who really need vacation time should join a company with 'no vacation policy'" and take a vacation whenever they want. After all, if the company says it has no policy against taking vacation, and everyone would like to take vacation when they feel like it...what's to stop people from taking the vacation days they need? And yet, somehow, that doesn't happen, in practice.
- baddox 13y ago> The creation of things like "Girls Who Code" is not a statement that this is the way things should be but a statement that this is the way things have to be -- for now. And I think the response is a disagreement over the way things have to be for now.
- icegreentea 13y agoI don't quite understand the structure of your argument. First you claim it will not work because you cannot imagine "Men Nurse" would succeed. And then you claim that the reason why many women is because they were not exposed to programming as a child, a trait that is shared with many males. This implies that the reason there is a short-fall in men in nursing is the similar to why there is a short-fall of women in programming. I don't believe this is the case, especially when you consider that your stated reason for the short-fall in women is that they are not exposed to programming as a child, implying the reason that men do not get into nursing is because they were exposed to less nursing like activities as a child. Which seems frankly kinda silly. Furthermore, if we accept your premise that the reason that many women do not code is because of lack of childhood exposure, then clearly the massive skew in demographics right now implies that there is something about how we tend to do things that skew exposure towards boys. And if we're not careful about it, then if we just did a "We Code" we could very likely just include the same skewing towards boys, and we're right back to where we began. I wanted to post something like this the last time something like this came up, but here we go. Rising tides raise all boats. But patching the leaky ones and installing a bilge pump will certainly help the floundering ones more. And right now people are deciding that there are some boats that are having trouble, and want to fix that first.
- ZoFreX 13y ago> Many women SIMPLY do not code for the same reason many men do not code. Well, yes, I suppose this is true. If you pick a random woman who cannot code, that is probably the reason. What about the women who have been driven out of coding simply because they happen to be female? It's something I have personally witnessed, both in the education system, and in commercial settings. There are real problems here, problems that you through your good fortune are not adversely affected by and in fact could go through your whole life without even knowing that they exist. > Instead we can put our efforts into teaching everyone to code: "We Code." If that's something you want to exist, then go make it - no one is stopping you, and the existence of "Girls Who Code" is in no way an impediment to your goals. I find it a little distasteful to ever say someone should give up on their personal project just because you think they should be doing it differently. Go do it then, if you're so sure you have the answers!
- rokhayakebe 13y agoA women cannot be driven out of coding by anyone other than herself. This is not a social thing. This is not hard core research requiring millions to get started. Only a PC, Stack Overflow and an internet connection are required. Even now on HN I cannot tell who is a girl or guy by their username, let alone the gender of the person who wrote the code that populates the webpage I read.
- ceol 13y ago> A women cannot be driven out of coding by anyone other than herself. What a disgustingly ignorant thing to say. The sheer obliviousness of your privilege in this regard is staggering. It's ridiculous to expect someone to put up with harassment and vitriol and, when they finally give up and leave — which is completely normal and something any normal person, including yourself, would do — say that it was all on them. You may not even realize it, but your comment actually excuses all of the sexism and misogyny in the industry. It's putting the onus, and the blame, on the victim. That's awful.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
- dinkumthinkum 13y agoWhy is this nursing thing coming up so often? There are many more women than you think in US graduate CS programs; however, many are not from the United States.