8 ms·

Yep, and a series of uncomfortable truths about how things work against men (specially Asian men) who are trying to learn to code: 1. At school and such, no on

Yep, and a series of uncomfortable truths about how things work against men (specially Asian men) who are trying to learn to code: 1. At school and such, no one tries to encourage you to code. People naturally think, "Oh, male and Asian, screw him, the world doesn't need another Asian dude coding. Let's try and teach Rails to that cute girl -- we need more of her kind." 2. People assume you are better at coding, math, and suchlike, and are more strident in their criticism of you when you fail to live up to their standards. I have had people tell me "yeah, if you can't understand this, you might not be smart enough". Think of the brouhaha that would result (gasp!) if someone said that to a girl. 3. You are naturally left out of all of the outreach events. Everyone is trying to get more women into coding, for some yet-as-undefined goal (getting exactly 51% women, maybe?). But you -- you are just another male nerd, and you have apparently had a red carpet laid out for you to the world of coding, so you must be privileged. There are tons of jobs that are female dominated. Nursing? Teaching? Fashion? Yet no one's complaining that there aren't enough men on the editorial staff of Cosmopolitan magazine, or starting movements for "Men Who Are Interested In Fashion". Draw your own conclusions from this.

judk 13y ago
Are you joking? The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world, especially with respect to the need to provide male role models for kids of single moms.
- parennoob 13y ago
  > The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. I mean men working in fashion, not being marketed to. And Axe is not fashion, thank you very much. > And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world... Show me the equivalent of "Rails Girls" or "Girls Who Code" for male teachers or fashion designers. For example, the list of sponsors on this page (http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/).
  - 0x20 13y ago
    As well as girlswhocode there are also many non-gender-specific organizations aimed at helping young people into computer science. Instead of asking whether gender-specific orgs for young people exist in the fashion or teaching world, you should also be asking whether non-gender-specific orgs exist in those fields as well. The possible lack of "Young Male Teachers" organizations doesn't make much of a point if there's also a lack of "Young Teachers" organizations.
  - webmaven 13y ago
    http://www.teachforamerica.org/ http://www.teachforamerica.org/
- Dewie 13y ago
  > metrosexual stuff. That's a funny word, to me. Apparently grooming has a lot to do with sexual orientation.
- protomyth 13y ago
  "And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world, especially with respect to the need to provide male role models for kids of single moms." Not by the people doing the hiring since they grow more risk adverse every year and being male is a risk. Daycares are more open about it, but elementary schools aren't far behind. Once again, if you don't want your female child's diapers changed by a male teacher - you are part of the problem.
- theorique 13y ago
  The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. The fashion world sees men as a target market. Doesn't mean that they are doing outreach or trying to improve the pipeline of men in to the industry.
ceol 13y ago
> Yet no one's complaining Plenty of people are complaining. You just don't see it because you're surrounding yourself in this little bubble of tech and startups and coding. The least you could have done, if not a simple Google search, was scroll three inches down before you replied: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6981113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6981113 There are plenty of initiatives to get more men into nursing and teaching and fashion. Even if there weren't, why does that matter? It has nothing to do with this industry's problems. We don't need every other industry to be fixing itself before we do. That's not even touching on your victim-complex of an argument about men coding. You must be pretty deep in that bubble.
- parennoob 13y ago
  > There are plenty of initiatives to get more men into nursing and teaching and fashion. Show me the equivalent of initiatives like "Rails Girls" or "Girls Who Code", or "Github's free private repos for women" for male teachers or nurses. A halfhearted list of platitudes from a Dean at ASU and an NYTimes article != actual effort. Look at the list of sponsors on this page. http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ and show me something even remotely equivalent for nursing, or fashion. > Even if there weren't, why does that matter? It has nothing to do with this industry's problems. We don't need every other industry to be fixing itself before we do. I might turn that around and say, "Well, if other industries, specially female-dominated ones aren't rushing to be inclusive towards men, is there a rational reason why we should be making these extra efforts? Or is it to satisfy the whims of writers like Nitasha Tiku who wouldn't know tech if it danced naked in front of her wearing a tea-cosy labelled Tech?" The fact that female-dominated industries are often perfectly comfortable being female-dominated industries is an indicator that it might be counterproductive to ignore male coders in a sexist effort to recruit more female ones. > That's not even touching on your victim-complex of an argument about men coding. You must be pretty deep in that bubble. What bubble? All I'm saying is that, as a low-income Asian person who learned to code, I am not a particularly privileged or rich person. Yet I have had zero initiatives helping me, or encouraging me to code. I have seen several people in a similar position. On the other hand, plenty of girls with high-income parents are babysat and helped by initiatives like Rails Girls et al. This is reality. Not sure why you think it is a complex.
hhw 13y ago
Also to add to the Asian part (Chinese in particular in my case), CS is still too new to be a particularly esteemed profession in Chinese culture, and I don't think I'm alone in having parents and a large extended family that pressured me hard to pursue a conservative, high income, esteemed profession instead such as medicine, finance, accounting, or law. Having graduated right after the dotcom bubble crashed certainly didn't help either, and was pretty close to taking a first job in accounting, as my parents convinced me that tech was dead-end. I finally put my foot down after realizing I would have been miserable doing anything other than tech, and it took quite a lot of time and effort before my parents accepted my career choice. However, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would have ended up in tech sooner or later no matter what happened. I'm not saying that having pushy Asian parents is the same as having to face gender discrimination, but simply that CS is not simply handed on a silver platter to all men either.
- theorique 13y ago
  That surprises me - my Electrical/Computer Engineering classes had a substantial proportion of Asian students (primarily Chinese). My friends and classmates of Asian background seemed to have families who were delighted and supportive that they were studying something technical and 'practical'.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
I have a funny story. When I was about 14, I was told I was going to be in a newspaper story about students participating in mathematics competitions (national versions of the IMO). In the end, they cancelled the interview and did the story on two White guys of the same age who had placed much lower in the competitions. I guess its a consolation that nowadays both White and Asian males would make an equally bad story.

judk 13y ago

Are you joking? The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world, especially with respect to the need to provide male role models for kids of single moms.

parennoob 13y ago
> The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. I mean men working in fashion, not being marketed to. And Axe is not fashion, thank you very much. > And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world... Show me the equivalent of "Rails Girls" or "Girls Who Code" for male teachers or fashion designers. For example, the list of sponsors on this page (http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/).
- 0x20 13y ago
  As well as girlswhocode there are also many non-gender-specific organizations aimed at helping young people into computer science. Instead of asking whether gender-specific orgs for young people exist in the fashion or teaching world, you should also be asking whether non-gender-specific orgs exist in those fields as well. The possible lack of "Young Male Teachers" organizations doesn't make much of a point if there's also a lack of "Young Teachers" organizations.
- webmaven 13y ago
  http://www.teachforamerica.org/ http://www.teachforamerica.org/
Dewie 13y ago
> metrosexual stuff. That's a funny word, to me. Apparently grooming has a lot to do with sexual orientation.
protomyth 13y ago
"And the lack of male teachers is a persistent concern in the education world, especially with respect to the need to provide male role models for kids of single moms." Not by the people doing the hiring since they grow more risk adverse every year and being male is a risk. Daycares are more open about it, but elementary schools aren't far behind. Once again, if you don't want your female child's diapers changed by a male teacher - you are part of the problem.
theorique 13y ago
The fashion world has massively outreached to men in recent couple of decades. Axe and chest shaving and all that other metrosexual stuff. The fashion world sees men as a target market. Doesn't mean that they are doing outreach or trying to improve the pipeline of men in to the industry.

ceol 13y ago

> Yet no one's complaining Plenty of people are complaining. You just don't see it because you're surrounding yourself in this little bubble of tech and startups and coding. The least you could have done, if not a simple Google search, was scroll three inches down before you replied: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6981113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6981113 There are plenty of initiatives to get more men into nursing and teaching and fashion. Even if there weren't, why does that matter? It has nothing to do with this industry's problems. We don't need every other industry to be fixing itself before we do. That's not even touching on your victim-complex of an argument about men coding. You must be pretty deep in that bubble.

parennoob 13y ago
> There are plenty of initiatives to get more men into nursing and teaching and fashion. Show me the equivalent of initiatives like "Rails Girls" or "Girls Who Code", or "Github's free private repos for women" for male teachers or nurses. A halfhearted list of platitudes from a Dean at ASU and an NYTimes article != actual effort. Look at the list of sponsors on this page. http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ http://www.girlswhocode.com/about-us/ and show me something even remotely equivalent for nursing, or fashion. > Even if there weren't, why does that matter? It has nothing to do with this industry's problems. We don't need every other industry to be fixing itself before we do. I might turn that around and say, "Well, if other industries, specially female-dominated ones aren't rushing to be inclusive towards men, is there a rational reason why we should be making these extra efforts? Or is it to satisfy the whims of writers like Nitasha Tiku who wouldn't know tech if it danced naked in front of her wearing a tea-cosy labelled Tech?" The fact that female-dominated industries are often perfectly comfortable being female-dominated industries is an indicator that it might be counterproductive to ignore male coders in a sexist effort to recruit more female ones. > That's not even touching on your victim-complex of an argument about men coding. You must be pretty deep in that bubble. What bubble? All I'm saying is that, as a low-income Asian person who learned to code, I am not a particularly privileged or rich person. Yet I have had zero initiatives helping me, or encouraging me to code. I have seen several people in a similar position. On the other hand, plenty of girls with high-income parents are babysat and helped by initiatives like Rails Girls et al. This is reality. Not sure why you think it is a complex.

hhw 13y ago

Also to add to the Asian part (Chinese in particular in my case), CS is still too new to be a particularly esteemed profession in Chinese culture, and I don't think I'm alone in having parents and a large extended family that pressured me hard to pursue a conservative, high income, esteemed profession instead such as medicine, finance, accounting, or law. Having graduated right after the dotcom bubble crashed certainly didn't help either, and was pretty close to taking a first job in accounting, as my parents convinced me that tech was dead-end. I finally put my foot down after realizing I would have been miserable doing anything other than tech, and it took quite a lot of time and effort before my parents accepted my career choice. However, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would have ended up in tech sooner or later no matter what happened. I'm not saying that having pushy Asian parents is the same as having to face gender discrimination, but simply that CS is not simply handed on a silver platter to all men either.

theorique 13y ago
That surprises me - my Electrical/Computer Engineering classes had a substantial proportion of Asian students (primarily Chinese). My friends and classmates of Asian background seemed to have families who were delighted and supportive that they were studying something technical and 'practical'.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

I have a funny story. When I was about 14, I was told I was going to be in a newspaper story about students participating in mathematics competitions (national versions of the IMO). In the end, they cancelled the interview and did the story on two White guys of the same age who had placed much lower in the competitions. I guess its a consolation that nowadays both White and Asian males would make an equally bad story.