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Yes, and that was valid from his POV, and from what I understand, consistent with his past behaviour regarding minor grammatical/spelling mistakes. And I get t

Yes, and that was valid from his POV, and from what I understand, consistent with his past behaviour regarding minor grammatical/spelling mistakes. And I get that - for some projects, the sheer overhead of every single person arguing their grammatical opinion on internal docs just wouldn't be worth it. And yes, I know, for some people this was a major travesty on our social fabric, and the social justice warriors came out in full force about how it was apparently incredibly sexist on Ben's part. However, that was basically just bike-shedding. This entire debacle should have sorted out graciously between the parties involved - there was no need to turn it into a public freakshow that it became. Look, yes, it would be nice if we used non-gender specific pronouns everywhere. Let's change the doc standards to reflect that. But going on a retroactive witch-hunt hurts nobody. In fact, I'd venture that this little crusade probably did more to hurt getting females into technology, when they see how incredibly immature and petty we "boys" are, and how they'll always be seen in terms of their gender and "protected" rather that just being another geek. Finally, the fact that the damn guy volunteers and mentors aspiring developers - including gasp females - makes the lynch mob look even worse.

erichocean 13y ago
how they'll always be seen in terms of their gender and "protected" rather that just being another geek My wife hates the Nineteenth Amendment for that exact reason: the idea that men "gave" women the right to vote (and thus, in principle, could take it away again) frustrates her. She'd rather a new Constitution that cleans up all the fixes we've made through the amendment process that treats men, women, races, and sexual orientations all equally. It's hard to argue that wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now. That's actually a problem with things like "Girls Who Code" or whatever it's called: while getting girls coding, it also introduces the idea that girls don't code, and that when they do, it's "novel". Anyway, I don't have a solution for that (and I'm not opposed to those efforts in any way), it's just something to keep in mind.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  > It's hard to argue that wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now. I mean, I guess it's ok if you want to speak on behalf of your wife, but now you're just putting words in everyone's mouth. Enough already. I strongly disagree with creating a new Constitution; we have so many people in Congress looking to take away our rights that we'd be lucky if our First Amendment rights stayed intact. Imagine members of Congress trading abortion rights for non-establishment. It would be a shit show on every level.
- spion 13y ago
  > That's actually a problem with things like > "Girls Who Code" or whatever it's called: > while getting girls coding, it also introduces > the idea that girls don't code, and that when > they do, it's "novel". Anyway, I don't have a > solution for that (and I'm not opposed to those > efforts in any way), it's just something to > keep in mind. You make a valid point. But there is some research that suggests that limiting membership to certain groups does make members of that group more likely to participate[1][3]. It sounds counter-intuitive to me, but the research and examples are there. I agree that in an ideal world, we would simply find the idea of "girls who code" equally weird as the idea of "girls who breathe" But the unfortunate truth is, there is a gender gap in programming. Its very real - we all know the stats. There is a reason for this gap, and it very likely has something to do with our society, culture, and us. I don't know about you, but I'd like to find out more about what those reasons are, and if there is something I can do to change that, I would. Why not? It would be great! The one thing I disagree about is that angry attacks or lynch mobs are a good strategy to go about this. Most male programmers are highly intelligent individuals - if the reasoning behind an idea is explained to them in a calm and logical manner, I believe they will be very likely to accept the explanation. In contrast, if the explanation or actions are interpreted as a personal attack, they may feel threatened and will be more likely to just attempt to defend themselves. Because they would be afraid of being personally accused, shamed and socially cast out. Even ideas such as privilege blindness can be explained in this manner - articles such as [2] and [3] are good examples (I'd guess that the pattern is that a personal story is more likely to produce good results) [1]: http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html [2]: http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm [3]: https://medium.com/tales-from-the-front/cc9ed433ec3c https://medium.com/tales-from-the-front/cc9ed433ec3c
deleted 13y ago
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erichocean 13y ago

how they'll always be seen in terms of their gender and "protected" rather that just being another geek My wife hates the Nineteenth Amendment for that exact reason: the idea that men "gave" women the right to vote (and thus, in principle, could take it away again) frustrates her. She'd rather a new Constitution that cleans up all the fixes we've made through the amendment process that treats men, women, races, and sexual orientations all equally. It's hard to argue that wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now. That's actually a problem with things like "Girls Who Code" or whatever it's called: while getting girls coding, it also introduces the idea that girls don't code, and that when they do, it's "novel". Anyway, I don't have a solution for that (and I'm not opposed to those efforts in any way), it's just something to keep in mind.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago
> It's hard to argue that wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now. I mean, I guess it's ok if you want to speak on behalf of your wife, but now you're just putting words in everyone's mouth. Enough already. I strongly disagree with creating a new Constitution; we have so many people in Congress looking to take away our rights that we'd be lucky if our First Amendment rights stayed intact. Imagine members of Congress trading abortion rights for non-establishment. It would be a shit show on every level.
spion 13y ago
> That's actually a problem with things like > "Girls Who Code" or whatever it's called: > while getting girls coding, it also introduces > the idea that girls don't code, and that when > they do, it's "novel". Anyway, I don't have a > solution for that (and I'm not opposed to those > efforts in any way), it's just something to > keep in mind. You make a valid point. But there is some research that suggests that limiting membership to certain groups does make members of that group more likely to participate[1][3]. It sounds counter-intuitive to me, but the research and examples are there. I agree that in an ideal world, we would simply find the idea of "girls who code" equally weird as the idea of "girls who breathe" But the unfortunate truth is, there is a gender gap in programming. Its very real - we all know the stats. There is a reason for this gap, and it very likely has something to do with our society, culture, and us. I don't know about you, but I'd like to find out more about what those reasons are, and if there is something I can do to change that, I would. Why not? It would be great! The one thing I disagree about is that angry attacks or lynch mobs are a good strategy to go about this. Most male programmers are highly intelligent individuals - if the reasoning behind an idea is explained to them in a calm and logical manner, I believe they will be very likely to accept the explanation. In contrast, if the explanation or actions are interpreted as a personal attack, they may feel threatened and will be more likely to just attempt to defend themselves. Because they would be afraid of being personally accused, shamed and socially cast out. Even ideas such as privilege blindness can be explained in this manner - articles such as [2] and [3] are good examples (I'd guess that the pattern is that a personal story is more likely to produce good results) [1]: http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html [2]: http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm [3]: https://medium.com/tales-from-the-front/cc9ed433ec3c https://medium.com/tales-from-the-front/cc9ed433ec3c

deleted 13y ago

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