32 ms·

Girls and Software

765 points by forgottenpass 13y ago

forgottenpass 13y ago
I resubmitted this because it seems like an viewpoint that's important in the larger gender in tech conversation, but the author seems to be outside the mainstream conversation (or at lest what I see of it on Hacker News). Sadly it looks like this submission is dying an even more uneventful death than the first time it was posted.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Start with a young woman who's already formed her identity. Dump her in a situation that operates on different social scripts than she's accustomed to, full of people talking about a subject she doesn't yet understand. Then tell her the community is hostile toward women and therefore doesn't have enough of them, all while showing her off like a prize poodle so you can feel good about recruiting a female. This is a recipe for failure. Brilliant writing. I for one am loving it. The article does have me somewhat torn though. On the one hand the stream-of-consciousness rantyness so accurately describes what's actually going on and it's beautiful to see it written down so poignantly. On the other hand it has a pretty strong "I got mine" component to it, where she laments the negative effects these changes have had on her personally but doesn't acknowledge that while she's in a position she likes that doesn't at all mean it is, or would be, like that for many others. The risk here is that sexism often manifests itself as 'all good until it's not,' in that the small things are always easily brushed off and if you're lucky to run in circles where you don't experience the bad stuff you tend to think it's all way overblown... until you get to a point where something happens that can't be brushed off and you realize you aren't actually as supported as you thought you were, at which point all minor transgressions are no longer just brushed off but are rather interpreted as 'still a transgression, even if only minor.'
  - pdonis 13y ago
    Your quote is a good one, but I like this one even better: I came to the Open Source world because I liked being part of a community where my ideas, my skills and my experience mattered, not my boobs. That's changed, and it's changed at the hands of the people who say they want a community where ideas, skills and experience matter more than boobs. I don't at all see her failing to acknowledge that she was fortunate--she had that community, at least for a while, and she explicitly says that others who came later did not. And she makes a number of good practical suggestions for improving the situation.
    - HedgeMage 13y ago
      Exactly my point. I had it pretty good...way better than newbie women today have it. I'd like us to give them the advantages I had! Ironically, this means in many ways doing the opposite of what many of the people calling themselves feminists demand.
    - mtrimpe 13y ago
      The thing is though that she is in a very rare, privileged position. She liked her community, fit in well, felt protected and cared for, wasn't troubled by the gender ratio and all in all was just happy with her situation. For a very large amount of women that is unfortunately not the case nowadays and unfortunately her situation is not typical in the slightest and I didn't see much actionable advice to improve on that. It's also important to note that it seems the people she respected are separated from today's youth by almost two generations: I've never had a problem with old-school hackers. These guys treat me like one of them, rather than "the woman in the group", and many are old enough to remember when they worked on teams that were about one third women, and no one thought that strange. Of course, the key word here is "old" (sorry guys). Most of the programmers I like are closer to my father's age than mine. Ever since that generation the gender gap has been widening and she's now witnessing attempts to correct that and she doesn't like what she sees. She doesn't like the exclusion of her son, the message it sends to him about women in tech (and thus herself) and most of all the fact that gender has now become a 'thing.' And I can totally relate that for her it must be painful indeed and that is her voice and she totally deserves it. Where we would go wrong is if we took this as the right approach, if we started basing best practices from this or worse: if we would use it to belittle the work of everyone who is trying to improve the situation.
  - Crake 13y ago
    >On the other hand it has a pretty strong "I got mine" component to it, where she laments the negative effects these changes have had on her personally but doesn't acknowledge that while she's in a position she likes that doesn't at all mean it is, or would be, like that for many others. These special ed for women programming events are harmful to all women, not just women who already program. You can't de-emphasize gender by putting more emphasis on it...
    - mtrimpe 13y ago
      I don't think either of us is capable of making definitive statements on the harm of women-only education programs, so I'll stay out of that. I do believe however that it's completely and utterly impossible to improve gender dynamics without putting emphasis on it. Using the (un)conscious (in)competence learning model [1] as a reference what you're saying is essentially that we should just go from unconscious incompetence straight to unconscious competence without doing that whole 'conscious' step, but that's just not a realistic option. To achieve mastery or improvement in anything it needs to, at least temporarily, become conscious. And yes, that will indeed be uncomfortable at first, but I really don't believe we can get there without it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
      - Crake 13y ago
        >I don't think either of us is capable of making definitive statements on the harm of women-only education programs Well, it's pretty much a given that they're increasing sex based discrimination in the world. Both as a primary effect ("we only take people with vaginas") as well as a significant secondary effect ("wait, so I can't go because I'm a boy?"). >I do believe however that it's completely and utterly impossible to improve gender dynamics without putting emphasis on it. It's a free country, so you're free to believe that. Just acknowledge that you're an advocate for sex-based discrimination. Incidentally, this makes you a sexist.
        mtrimpe 13y ago
        > Incidentally, this makes you a sexist. Given that sexist isn't a binary thing I'm perfectly willing to concede that to some degree and in some ways I am indeed a sexist. Heck, I'm bisexual and to some degree I'm a homophobe. I don't like it, I'm not proud of it, it definitely doesn't work in my favour and I'm actively working on it, but I still am. And so are you and that's OK. As long as bit by bit we're all getting better.
- __pThrow 13y ago
  I'm glad you reposted this. I am not sure what HN etiquette is for that. Some articles really do deserve a repost and this is one. And yes, looks like it will take after Tasha Yar, and die repeatedly.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - amishforkfight 13y ago
      She's a Star Trek character that died a few times.
- amishforkfight 13y ago
  Thanks for the repost, I haven't read this before and found it quite good.
- gms 13y ago
  I'm quite glad you submitted it; thanks. Unfortunate that such an online article could only have been written by a woman, as the likelihood of being on the receiving end of outrage is too high had it come from a man.
  - Crake 13y ago
    You have to be the right gender, race, or sex these days to have an opinion these days. Not judging people based on their sex would be extremely sexist!
    - quenlinlom 13y ago
      Oh please. Here we have yet another brogrammer crying his mantears whilst trying to attempt satire (which he failed). It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. If you're misogynistic and you are misogynistic. It's that simple.
shurcooL 13y ago
This... sounds so very spot on. I really enjoyed the article and think it's quite excellent.
superuser2 13y ago
>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. The largest enabling step for me was when I got my own laptop which I was free to break (software-wise) and free to take into my room so I could focus away from the distracting noises of the kitchen/living room. Much of even the HN community would consider this irresponsible parenting. Probably even my parents wouldn't have let a daughter talk to strangers on IRC about something they don't understand. But how else is someone with nontechnical parents supposed to get started? It's sooo much different when it's something you choose to do with your free time, rather than something half-assedly forced on you by parents or school curriculum. Especially to a kid.
- weland 13y ago
  Yes! Had it not been for the incredible amount of time I spent unsupervised on the Internet, I wouldn't be as good a programmer as I am today. Did I watch porn before I was of legal age? Yep, and I'm in a happy relationship with no sex problems. Break my computer often? Yep, I'd repair it every few days. I was also exposed to a variety of cultures, read about every operating system on Earth (toyed with emulated PDP-11s and VAXen and C64s for days and days) and wrote in every obscure language there is just because I was a kid and had enough time not to worry about whether spending a week to learn Forth was worth the hours I was putting into it.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Same here. Emphasis on "vast quantities," "unsupervised," and "unfiltered." All three were required.
- japhyr 13y ago
  > which I was free to break (software-wise) I'm curious, were you on a linux os? Did you break your software often? It seems to me people who get on linux early might have an easier time, because they can so easily break their system and rebuild it. It seems like a kid who breaks a windows/ mac os might need to go to their parents to deal with license keys, which might cause the parents to say "no more hacking".
jt2190 13y ago
I'm not sure I understand what the definition of "hacker" is in this article: > Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. > Neither do young men. Hackers are born in childhood, > because that's when the addiction to solving the > puzzle or building something kicks in to those who've > experienced that "victory!" moment like I had when I > imposed my will on a couple electronic primates. It seems to imply that people who simply make their living programming computers, and who came to programming when they were older, aren't "hackers". Am I missing something? (Edit: Given that programming careers can be quite lucrative, and that careers in general are now quite long, it makes economic sense that people would want to join in later in their lives. Short of building a time machine to correct past parenting, must these people be permanently excluded from the industry?)
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Not all programmers are hackers. Not all hackers are programmers. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
- hrkristian 13y ago
  You have to allow for exceptions. Talking about apples is not denying the existence of oranges. It is just very hard for a 20+ to become interested in something that is not related to something prominent in their life thus far. A boy whose life has been about cars and football is not very likely to pick up an interest in butterflies.
- Crake 13y ago
  I don't think that's what she's saying. Note that she defines the personality type as an interest in "solving the puzzle or building something." Even if you don't have access to computers to tinker with, the sort of person who tends to become good at programming is the type who has always been innately curious and tinkering with something.
- gruseom 13y ago
  Seems to me the author vividly conveys what she means by "hacker" in the very paragraph you quoted: technologist addiction solving puzzles building things "victory!" moment impose will on electronics These things are done and felt for their own sake and not as a means to an end, like a paycheck. Perhaps that's the main difference.
timr 13y ago
I'm torn. I think she makes some really good points -- particularly about discouraging young girls and the futility of shoving adult humans into foreign social situations -- but I also think she might be rather narrowly defining the personality type of a "hacker", and dismissing behaviors that she doesn't find valuable (in her words: "ephemera -- popularity, beauty and fitting in"). Maybe it's possible that there are plenty of people out there who care about "ephemera", and yet are also capable of programming a computer or soldering things together? I think it's possible. And when I read stuff like this: "Sometimes I want to shout 'you're not a programmer, what are you doing here?!'" it makes me think: this might be a problem. Is it harder to be a hacker if you also have an interest in social media and graphic design and popularity and friendships? Are we defining "hacker" to include only people with bad social skills and no interest outside of technology? I hope not.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  Maybe it's possible that there are plenty of people out there who care about "ephemera", and yet are also capable of programming a computer or soldering things together? I think it's possible. Sure, Jobs did. On the other hand, Woz was the tech genius, not Jobs. I've never heard of a tech genius who also cared much about the qualities you mention. This seems more than a coincidence. If it were, then there'd probably be at least one counterexample. Is there someone who is at the level of Woz or Blackwell who also cares about popularity, beauty, and fitting in?
  - timr 13y ago
    "Woz was the tech genius, not Jobs....I've never heard of a tech genius who also cared much about the qualities you mention." I hope you've considered that your worldly experience may not be comprehensive. I've known plenty of good programmers who care about all the things I mentioned. They just don't self-select with the Linux user groups of the world, so you're unlikely to come upon them if that's where you hang out.
    - sillysaurus2 13y ago
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luxpir 13y ago
Nicely put. Not convinced by the 'special olympics' comment (aren't we working towards complete equality of people here?) but get the sentiment. I personally think the self-confidence to create or do what one wants, put the head above the parapet etc., should be nurtured in every school-goer and beyond. It's normally the cultural norms of schools and wider society that squash any desire to confidently attempt something unusual in life. It's alright for athletes, coming back to the olympic theme, as that particular abnormal activity is celebrated and funded. In essence, too many small-minded, anxious bullies and borderline psychopaths in positions of influence. Influence itself needs decentralizing?
skybrian 13y ago
It's a good rant. There are concrete suggestions for improvement, and also concrete examples of where some people went a little too far. I'm less happy about excluding people who are coming into computing late, though.
- Crake 13y ago
  >I'm less happy about excluding people who are coming into computing late, though. I don't think she's doing that. Note that she doesn't say that you haven to have been programming since age 2, just that you have to have a natural interest in "solving the puzzle or building something." I came late to programming since I didn't have access to computers I could tinker with, but I was still putzing around with k'nex and getting yelled at for taking household appliances apart from a very young age.
  - jkrems 13y ago
    I think it's also important that she points to reasons why women stopped coming to CS early (the Barbie-beauty culture) and mentions the often forgotten "old enough to remember when they worked on teams that were about one third women". I don't think she wants to say that you have to be a bad developer because you start late, but rather that we won't get back to a decent percentage of female developers without a shift in how we treat young girls.
stefantalpalaru 13y ago
> Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls only. When my son asked why he couldn't join, it was explained to him that girls need special help to become interested in technology, and that if there are boys around, the girls will be too scared to try. And that's why we can't use sexism to fight sexism (or mistakenly enforce the same composition of the general population on self-selected subsets).
- fudged71 13y ago
  I've wanted to mention this for a while but the topic hadn't come up. My engineering faculty tried many things to get more girls in the program, including having girls-only events with the female dean. Of course, all students got these emails, and many of us guys were left wondering why we never had the chance to meet the dean in events like these. Excluding sometimes seems worse than the biases these programs aim to solve.
  - codygman 13y ago
    Excluding the more privileged sometimes seems worse than the bias which excludes the less privileged? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
    - pantalaimon 13y ago
      I think it's up to discussion how they are 'less privileged'.
    - hueving 13y ago
      Because now you're excluding both classes. Two exclusions don't make a right, so to speak.
    - facepalm 13y ago
      While I don't agree with your assessment of privileges, let's look at it in another way: should boys be artificially constrained so that they don't outperform girls (and I am not implying boys would outperform girls, just that that is what society seems to think)? If you offer a robotics course only for girls, but not for boys, this is what you are effectively doing. You may end up with a better gender ratio, by preventing boys from getting into robotics (I doubt it'll work that way, but let's assume it does). Is this the way we want society to resolve this issue? Why not foster everybody's talents?
guard-of-terra 13y ago
There is a broader point that we no longer have the open source community we once had. It was about filling every thing with good open source software - be it desktop, server, embedded. On desktop there was a variety of DEs, distributions, software and all that stuff. There was hope that open source will win. But nowdays I see open source largely as a server side movement powering large proprietary platforms. Everybody is using these platforms without questioning. There is no longer anything to win. Plus proliferation of walled gardens. What will new open source hackers work on? Ruby test framework? No they won't. Maybe they will be hacking mobile dev, but that makes you conformist nimble enough to crawl into walled garden. The politics regarding gender are just a part of politics out there.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  There is a broader point that we no longer have the open source community we once had. I think this may be one of the more tragic results of the 2000-2010 decade. Where have the developers gone, and how could we get them back?
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    Well, they lead a "normal" life inside a corporate monster, but hey, they have their iPhone!
VonGuard 13y ago
themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, they solve it for one another before asking the teachers. They work together and don't compete. The boys compete and try to get way far ahead of the teachers, and end up getting lost. The girls all move at the same pace except for the ones who were advanced-class level when they showed up. Second thing: little girls are not affraid, and not any less able to do this. It's a societal thing that pushes them away. They see the girls in their classes interested in other things, so they don't get interested in computers. Instead, they get interested in facebook, not the computer itself, because their older siblings use it, their friends use it, and they then learn that computers are for socializing. Given the proper environment, they can learn anything a geek would learn, it's just that they don't get spoon fed computer knowledge, they get spoon fed facebook, Snapchat, Pokemon and Minecraft knowledge. Third: Minecraft cuts across all genders. All kids absolutely adore Minecraft, and about 50% want to learn programming just to make mods for the game. Finally, girls who come to our classes keep coming back. They have a little social group with the other girls, and they welcome in other girls. The boys are left out, mostly, but that's fine as they're not having trouble learning or keeping up. The girls in our classes are their own support mechanism, and they tend to become friends outside of classes. So, learn from this what you will.
- gruseom 13y ago
  How do you get kids modding Minecraft? I suggested this a little while ago for a kid in my brother-in-law's Grade 8 class, but then regretted it because the tools for doing it seemed inaccessible to beginners.
  - VonGuard 13y ago
    You don't. It's Java. It's like a kid asking you to build a car engine from scratch day one. We kindly point them to our Scratch class as a way to learn how to program.
krstck 13y ago
Oooh, this was an icy stab right at the core. She's completely right: >Dump her in a situation that operates on different social scripts than she's accustomed to, full of people talking about a subject she doesn't yet understand. Then tell her the community is hostile toward women and therefore doesn't have enough of them, all while showing her off like a prize poodle so you can feel good about recruiting a females This explains, better than I ever could, why I've always felt weird about all of the attention on getting women into programming. As a kid, I loved programming. When I became a teenager, I got wind that it wasn't something "cool" and got spooked. For someone as insecure as I was, having a hobby that I couldn't really "explain" to normal people was embarrassing. Probably if I had known a single other kid/girl that liked computers like I did, I might have continued on that path and not been distracted for about 10 years.
- marquis 13y ago
  That's the reason why classes for girls (not necessarily primarily but directed towards) work so well. Being in a room full of men with few or no women in ANY circumstance is awkward unless you are top of your game.
  - HedgeMage 13y ago
    Sure, it might be awkward at first for girls who don't have a lot of experience in mixed-gender environments. If it's a friendly mixed-gender environment, the awkwardness wears off pretty soon. I've watched it happen. On the other hand, "foo for women" events are high-pressure environments that put a spotlight on poor newbies. It's a way of saying "You aren't just here to learn something, you're representing women, you're here to prove something for all of us". It implies that the mainstream groups aren't safe or okay places for women to learn. Additionally, they prevent those newbie women from learning the social scripts and memes that will help them fit in with mainstream hacker culture (or even programmer culture), so they get to be total outsiders as juniors instead of as freshmen, which really sucks.
    - supersystem 13y ago
shiven 13y ago
Can't upvote this enough. This article should be required reading for every HN reader.
mistakoala 13y ago
I groaned at what sounded like another SJW article on 'teh evil patriarchy of technology'. I'm glad I read on for an interesting and original viewpoint. More Susan Sons' and fewer Adria Richards', please. The former have meaningful and constructive contributions to make while the latter just make political hay for their own self-interest. As a learner, the perception of an increased emphasis on identity politics is off-putting to me. Not because I secretly want to have a career and interest in tech to further my patriarchal tendencies, but because it's shifting attention away from the interesting stuff - the stuff that makes tech fun and interesting in the first place.
- forgottenpass 13y ago
  While I don't agree 100% with what you say here, you more or less drive at why I posted it. There are some conversations about gender and tech that, while useful in their own right, also become exclusionary of other possible framing and interpretation of issues and events at hand. "SJW", while neither an apt nor particularly nice monicker, does (to some) refer to a practicing particular brands of off-putting rhetoric that are uncompromising to a fault. I see people largely in agreement talk past each other because one person's mind is already made up in a way incompatible with someone else's experiences. A HN commenter once suggested that agreement has become a form of social signaling. I don't know if I believe that, but it would be dangerous and counterproductive because arguments need iteration. If you can't make your case in a way that convinces people with your same goals, you're not going to convince people that don't yet share your goals.
  - mistakoala 13y ago
    I recognise that tech has its politics and is rooted in it to an extent (Cypherpunks etc). I'm not particularly against that or blind to it. What I dislike is the braiding of tech with identity politics issues by people who are unaccommodating, and hostile in their language and behaviour, if not their motives. Here, I feel that SJW is an apt description for people whose interests are primarily identity politics. It's not a term that I apply universally. Sons made her point in a thoughtful way. She was not hostile (explicitly or implicitly). If there are issues regarding identity politics and tech, I'd rather hear about it from people like her. The pity is (in an awkwardly expressed way), because of her position, she doesn't necessarily want a platform from which to say things on these matters because she doesn't frame her experience in terms of gender (and that seems to carry through into the comments).
dev1n 13y ago
Growing up watching shows like "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius" definitely shaped me as a child into the tech freak I am today. Girls getting barbies thrown at them when they are 12 does not help put girls into the tech sector. We need television shows like "Diane's Laboratory" or "Jennifer Neutron Girl Genius" to get girls interested in tech. Hit 'em when they're young.
- facepalm 13y ago
  Girls don't get barbies thrown at them, they beg for them. The are expensive, too.
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    Not if they never find out that there exist things called "barbies". We never introduced our girls to barbies or anything -- only cars, legos, etc. etc. and they're more than happy with them. I think barbies dolls should be outright banned. Why're we teaching our children to worry about their looks at such a young age? That's what barbie dolls are -- "pretty woman", woman with obnoxiously pretty dresses, lipsticks, etc. etc. Why're we normalizing that kind of behavior for children?
    - facepalm 13y ago
      Maybe Barbie doesn't teach them to worry about looks, but lets them relax about it? Barbie is pretty, after all. Like boys playing with batman figurines, they have a powerful actor that can do anything they want. I don't want to defend them. I always chided my sister for playing with barbies, but she enjoyed it. She grew up to be a normal, non-pink woman with a serious occupation, so the damage from playing with barbies seems to have been limited.
    - Crake 13y ago
      >I think barbies dolls should be outright banned. You do realize there are plenty of girls out there who love their barbies, right? Why do you hate them?
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marquis 13y ago
>Young women don't magically become technologists at 22 I did exactly that. I have a degree in the arts, but always loved physics and pursued that secondarily. I failed physics because I had taken arts instead of mathematics but found that that didn't stop me learning C and building all the arts programs I ever wanted. Quite some years ago now and I was an outlier but it's not too uncommon. Good schools are now getting girls into robotics and coding before puberty. That's when you get exited. I loved messing with radios and old VHS players when I was a kid, and probably MOST importantly my father was a technologist: exposure at a young age is everything.
- HedgeMage 13y ago
  Ahh, but it wasn't magic...as you go on to say, the seeds were planted when you were young. "messing with radios and old VHS players" is a precursor to becoming a good technologist. It's not about what you played with, it's about early experiences of problem solving, of making and/or fixing and/or tinkering in any context.
  - marquis 13y ago
    >but it wasn't magic No. I'm also not an world-class tennis player even though I played tennis since I was able to hold a racket and had good teachers. I just happen to be good at problem solving, making and fixing and tinkering. Most of friends who were at school who liked to build things also went on to have technical careers, just not with computer programming. So, I think that we are only starting to see a new generation coming up for whom computers aren't something they met when they were older, so there will start to be a lot more natural female programmers among them. In my generation it was rare for a father to take interest in a girl's technical inclinations, and I think I'm really lucky for that early experience. My point is that I just think this is a phase and a generation not far away won't face this gender discrepancy.
    - mitochondrion 13y ago
      I'd just like to throw it out there that perhaps your problem solving ability developed in lockstep with your tinkering.
piokuc 13y ago
Great text by Susan on very important issue. I'm a male software engineer and the predominance of male pears has been the only major downside of being in the business for me ever since i started studying CS almost 20 yrs ago. It should be understood and fixed for the sake of future generations.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Good to see this article getting the attention it deserves, after it was unfairly overlooked the first time.
arrrg 13y ago
Nice, complete misunderstanding of feminism and what most people argue for. Nice attacking of straw men. Nice rant for the status quo. I’m sad now.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Please elaborate. There's no such thing as a "misunderstanding of feminism". Feminism hasn't been a coherent movement in decades. It's a highly stratified network of ideologies and schools, some of which are only vaguely united under the pretext of social justice, but which have radically different views. Some are even openly and proudly transphobic. I'd like it if we stopped pretending feminism is some zenith of civil rights. It did help in the past, but it is now worn out and has long been a parody.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Feminist thought is diverse, sure, but there are certain schools of thought that are by far more widespread. This article misrepresents those. I do not know any feminist, for example, who would ever think of telling a woman to dress more gender-appropriate. Such gender policing is abhorred and practically unheard of. It’s just so weird to read about that as some sort of feminist idea. Also, feminism is super-rad. Proud feminist!
    - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
      The most widespread one at the moment is postmodern feminism, which is a complete joke. I don't know what exactly do you mean by "gender-appropriate", but there are feminist movements which embrace traditional ideas of femininity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_feminism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_feminism I'm assuming by "super-rad" you're trying to say you're a super radical feminist. Good to see you're proud of your little ideology.
      - arrrg 13y ago
        Holy shit. Please stop seeing demons everywhere. And work on improving your view of reality. It’s severely distorted and makes little sense. Also, deliberate obtuseness is not very cool.
e12e 13y ago
Many good points in this article, but I think it falls short in analysing what's changed (or what's wrong). > Most of all, I'm disappointed. I had a haven, a place where no one cared what I looked like, what my body was like or about any ephemera—they cared about what I could do—and this culture shift has robbed me of my haven. At least I had that haven. The girls who follow me missed out on it. Well, yes. Computing and programming has become (more) mainstream -- it's no longer a tiny sub-culture free of mainstream bias. I'm sure there are disappointed skaters, surfers and punks out there too. I don't think the best way forward is to throw out years of feminist research, or think that "if we could all just get along like before, the problem would go away". It's not that it wouldn't go away, it's just that we need to make an effort to get there. One way to do that is to have sex-segregated introduction classes. They shouldn't all be segregated, nor is it the only thing that we should be doing -- but that is one way of creating a safe and rewarding environment. If we have tutors managing to get mixed classes going, in a way that works well, then that's great too (see VonGuard's comment for example). Generally if you can grab kids before they've been hammered into groupthink about toys, fun and gender roles (which is harder and harder to do with increasing tv commercials, product placement etc) -- then kids don't need to be "de-programmed" -- they can just be allowed to be kids. And they'll play and learn by themselves. But the later you start, the more likely you'll need to have a plan of attack if you want everyone to get a fair shake, and similar participation. I do think she's right in calling out a lot of the crap that people do in the name of "political correctness" -- without much thought about how or why, though. Being righteous isn't enough; if you're not right, you're probably just making things worse. [edit: I don't usually comment down-votes -- but I'd like to see a comment. The general idea is to down vote submissions that don't contribute to the discussion -- while I certainly expect many to dis-agree I certainly hope this post isn't perceived as vapid?]
- belorn 13y ago
  > I don't think the best way forward is to throw out years of feminist research. That sentence gave me a nice smile. feminist research is poor at best, non-existent at worse. Take affirmative action in education. Give me a single study that shows that it a) produce long-term professionals, b) is better than the base line, and c) if it has any of the negative and well documented long term effects inherent of single-sex education. There are plenty of feminist research that shows there exist an gender imbalance in STEM, and most studies gives one or other kind of theory around the why. The theories are however rarely if ever tested. The "years of feminist research" has not gotten to that part yet, and won't until we demand more from researchers than summery of latest census data.
Wintamute 13y ago
Blimey this piece is spot on. It manages to basically sum up many of the wordless, un-expressed proto-opinions I have on on the matter into one incredibly coherent package. Lucid, rational and heart felt - great discourse.
donaq 13y ago
"Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. Neither do young men. Hackers are born in childhood..." Nitpick: I actually only started learning to program in university as an undergraduate (I was ~21). I have a female friend who had a similar start, so you don't necessarily have to start as a child. It's not gymnastics. The thrill of solving puzzles can be experienced at any time in your life, I think. Otherwise, great article.
- oh_sigh 13y ago
  I don't really understand your thought process. You seem to get it, but you don't. When you learn to program has nothing to do with when you become a hacker.
- auggierose 13y ago
  I don't like solving puzzles. Something that was put together by somebody else, for the sole purpose of you trying to figure out what it was. How stupid. It's for people who believe in god.
overgard 13y ago
Funny the lack of social justice warriors in this thread to save her from herself. (Which is to say: fantastic article, thanks).
tragic 13y ago
Very interesting article. The problem I have with the particular form the tech-feminist crusades have taken is that it seems to me to be diversionary at a fundamental level. Women are not just under-represented in tech, but in the majority of the most lucrative professions as a whole. So, unless we accept the bogus argument that women are just naturally worse at stuff other than babies, we must assume that this is a problem with society as a whole (the dolls-versus-lego thing is a part of that, but not the only one). Women-only classes and so on may or may not help the particular women involved into the industry - I don't know. Presumably that can be empirically studied by people with the time and resources to do so. But the underlying problem is a matter for 'concerned citizens', not the tech industry as the tech industry. Crusading, say, for 'codes of conduct' at conferences has the seductive appeal of a modest and realisable goal; unfortunately, there is no nice, pat answer to gender inequality in society, as the last three centuries of 'concerned citizens' have learned. To put it bluntly, it's not dick jokes at PyCon keeping women out, any more than it's dick jokes at law school that produces the gender gap in law firms.
- lexcorvus 13y ago
  Women are not just under-represented in tech, but in the majority of the most lucrative professions as a whole. So, unless we accept the bogus argument that women are just naturally worse at stuff other than babies, we must assume that this is a problem with society as a whole (the dolls-versus-lego thing is a part of that, but not the only one). What about the possibility that men and women are different, and in particular that men are more naturally inclined to do things like sacrifice time and flexibility in order to make more money? There's no reason to expect a priori that men and women are identical in this regard. Indeed, evaluating Homo sapiens as a sexually dimorphic bipedal ape whose sexes have different reproductive incentives, it would be very surprising to find otherwise.
- chrishynes 13y ago
  I don't understand this line of thought. On the one hand, you obviously see women as disadvantaged in the current system. On the other, your ideal world is one in which women basically become men. Obviously, both men and women should be able to do what they want, whether that be raise a family, provide for that family, some of both, or not have a family at all. But does is a higher ratio of men to women in a given profession causatively show that women are disadvantaged? Is it only a good ratio when it is exactly 50/50%? You believe so, and don't consider any other alternative. Or could it be that it is a matter of personal choice based on a biological bias toward certain choices? You don't see the male 99% of garbage collectors as being an issue to be resolved. Maybe women tend to turn down the high pressure jobs and prefer to spend more time socializing and with family compared to men. Many studies have suggested the same. Could it be an issue of the ratio of testosterone vs. estrogen? Those types of hormonal differences are known to greatly influence the types of choices we're discussing here.
surana90 13y ago
Very well written! It points out correctly what has gone wrong with feminism movement in recent years.
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Fuxy 13y ago
She will probably be glad to hear there's still young hackers out there who don't give a shit about this feminist propaganda. I for one don't care what gender you are the rules are the same regardless of gender. If i happen to have a complaint about your code or anything else for that matter and you happen to be a girl ...well what do i care? On the other hand every girl in STEM that constantly complains about how awkward the guys are just outed them selves as not a hacker gir. A real hacker girl knows that the guys are awkward but it's not intentional the just never bothered with social skills. A real hacker girl also puts as much value into fasion and the likes like any other hacker which is to say very little at all. So that well dressed and social girl in IT is most likely not really a hacker then again this is just a generalization and would gladly be proven wrong. Hell if you happen to know someone like that i would love meet her that is quite rare. The reality of people like us with a curious nature is the we never find time to learn social skills and fasion we're just too busy satisfying our curiosity. I personally would love to have a better fasion sense but i really need to get that arch install working perfectly :)
loladesoto 13y ago
i am one of 10 children (7 girls including myself and 3 boys). 100% of us went into STEM. what's more, we are Latino so growing up in a thoroughly geeky environment was, well, unique. in high school i found safety in geeky societies like Academic Decathlon. i went to a science/engineering university and dropped out to work in tech. and as much as i love my work, i have always been aware (sometimes acutely) of being one of the only women in the room. i'd be lying if it didn't chap my hide sometimes. i have skills commonly found among the male population (i am an entrepreneur, i know how to code) but it's a lonely existence. i still look like a woman, wear heels and makeup for the fun of it when i want to, and am relatively short! my point is, i stand out from the norm and people are constantly being surprised by me/my abilities. which means i have to do a lot of explaining and seeking out of mentors, rather than spending that time thriving in the simple assumption that i am precisely where i am supposed to be. men have that. the really self-reflective ones realize that. the awesome thing is, the women in my family have not only been fighting the good fight in STEM, they are passing the baton. each one of my nieces--all 8 of them--is encouraged to build, tear apart, and reconstruct stuff. these kids have to be torn away from Minecraft, unglued from their laptops and iPads. i teach girls how to code and do graphic design in my free time, and one of my favorite questions is: "When is the Maker Faire? When is the Maker Faire!" with sparkly eyes. my experience in tech hasn't been like @HedgeMage's. although i didn't start coding until later in my career, i have always been a hacker and the dirty little secret is that girls just aren't encouraged to hack. some of us are born that way, however. and that's a pretty amazing way to be on the inside, regardless of how we look or are treated on the outside.
jami 13y ago
It's great that this author's upbringing was such that a robotics class for girls wasn't needed. My mom also taught her daughters that we're people, so of course I wanted a computer like the other smart kids at school (in the '80s). But some children are raised to think of things as "for boys" and "for girls", and for those kids, a class for girls is absolutely useful. It isn't that those kids aren't naturally smart enough; it's that everything in their lives is telling them that robots are for boys. It's a shame that someone botched the explanation of the robotics class to her son.
lukasm 13y ago
I remember when I was 10 my dad set BIOS password so I could only play for 2 hours a day max. I manage to guess the password. It was "dad" :). When he was coming back from work I quickly turn off the PC. After 3rd time he noticed that PC was hot.
beauzero 13y ago
Awesome article. As a father of two daughters I appreciate some of the anecdotes that you put forward.
sdegutis 13y ago
Wow. Susan Sons at 12 years old was way better at open source software than I am today! We need more children like Susan Sons in the world, and we need to give them unlimited, supervised computer/internet access.

765 points by forgottenpass 13y ago

I resubmitted this because it seems like an viewpoint that's important in the larger gender in tech conversation, but the author seems to be outside the mainstream conversation (or at lest what I see of it on Hacker News). Sadly it looks like this submission is dying an even more uneventful death than the first time it was posted.

mtrimpe 13y ago
Start with a young woman who's already formed her identity. Dump her in a situation that operates on different social scripts than she's accustomed to, full of people talking about a subject she doesn't yet understand. Then tell her the community is hostile toward women and therefore doesn't have enough of them, all while showing her off like a prize poodle so you can feel good about recruiting a female. This is a recipe for failure. Brilliant writing. I for one am loving it. The article does have me somewhat torn though. On the one hand the stream-of-consciousness rantyness so accurately describes what's actually going on and it's beautiful to see it written down so poignantly. On the other hand it has a pretty strong "I got mine" component to it, where she laments the negative effects these changes have had on her personally but doesn't acknowledge that while she's in a position she likes that doesn't at all mean it is, or would be, like that for many others. The risk here is that sexism often manifests itself as 'all good until it's not,' in that the small things are always easily brushed off and if you're lucky to run in circles where you don't experience the bad stuff you tend to think it's all way overblown... until you get to a point where something happens that can't be brushed off and you realize you aren't actually as supported as you thought you were, at which point all minor transgressions are no longer just brushed off but are rather interpreted as 'still a transgression, even if only minor.'
- pdonis 13y ago
  Your quote is a good one, but I like this one even better: I came to the Open Source world because I liked being part of a community where my ideas, my skills and my experience mattered, not my boobs. That's changed, and it's changed at the hands of the people who say they want a community where ideas, skills and experience matter more than boobs. I don't at all see her failing to acknowledge that she was fortunate--she had that community, at least for a while, and she explicitly says that others who came later did not. And she makes a number of good practical suggestions for improving the situation.
  - HedgeMage 13y ago
    Exactly my point. I had it pretty good...way better than newbie women today have it. I'd like us to give them the advantages I had! Ironically, this means in many ways doing the opposite of what many of the people calling themselves feminists demand.
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    The thing is though that she is in a very rare, privileged position. She liked her community, fit in well, felt protected and cared for, wasn't troubled by the gender ratio and all in all was just happy with her situation. For a very large amount of women that is unfortunately not the case nowadays and unfortunately her situation is not typical in the slightest and I didn't see much actionable advice to improve on that. It's also important to note that it seems the people she respected are separated from today's youth by almost two generations: I've never had a problem with old-school hackers. These guys treat me like one of them, rather than "the woman in the group", and many are old enough to remember when they worked on teams that were about one third women, and no one thought that strange. Of course, the key word here is "old" (sorry guys). Most of the programmers I like are closer to my father's age than mine. Ever since that generation the gender gap has been widening and she's now witnessing attempts to correct that and she doesn't like what she sees. She doesn't like the exclusion of her son, the message it sends to him about women in tech (and thus herself) and most of all the fact that gender has now become a 'thing.' And I can totally relate that for her it must be painful indeed and that is her voice and she totally deserves it. Where we would go wrong is if we took this as the right approach, if we started basing best practices from this or worse: if we would use it to belittle the work of everyone who is trying to improve the situation.
- Crake 13y ago
  >On the other hand it has a pretty strong "I got mine" component to it, where she laments the negative effects these changes have had on her personally but doesn't acknowledge that while she's in a position she likes that doesn't at all mean it is, or would be, like that for many others. These special ed for women programming events are harmful to all women, not just women who already program. You can't de-emphasize gender by putting more emphasis on it...
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    I don't think either of us is capable of making definitive statements on the harm of women-only education programs, so I'll stay out of that. I do believe however that it's completely and utterly impossible to improve gender dynamics without putting emphasis on it. Using the (un)conscious (in)competence learning model [1] as a reference what you're saying is essentially that we should just go from unconscious incompetence straight to unconscious competence without doing that whole 'conscious' step, but that's just not a realistic option. To achieve mastery or improvement in anything it needs to, at least temporarily, become conscious. And yes, that will indeed be uncomfortable at first, but I really don't believe we can get there without it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
    - Crake 13y ago
      >I don't think either of us is capable of making definitive statements on the harm of women-only education programs Well, it's pretty much a given that they're increasing sex based discrimination in the world. Both as a primary effect ("we only take people with vaginas") as well as a significant secondary effect ("wait, so I can't go because I'm a boy?"). >I do believe however that it's completely and utterly impossible to improve gender dynamics without putting emphasis on it. It's a free country, so you're free to believe that. Just acknowledge that you're an advocate for sex-based discrimination. Incidentally, this makes you a sexist.
      - mtrimpe 13y ago
        > Incidentally, this makes you a sexist. Given that sexist isn't a binary thing I'm perfectly willing to concede that to some degree and in some ways I am indeed a sexist. Heck, I'm bisexual and to some degree I'm a homophobe. I don't like it, I'm not proud of it, it definitely doesn't work in my favour and I'm actively working on it, but I still am. And so are you and that's OK. As long as bit by bit we're all getting better.
__pThrow 13y ago
I'm glad you reposted this. I am not sure what HN etiquette is for that. Some articles really do deserve a repost and this is one. And yes, looks like it will take after Tasha Yar, and die repeatedly.
- deleted 13y ago
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  - amishforkfight 13y ago
    She's a Star Trek character that died a few times.
amishforkfight 13y ago
Thanks for the repost, I haven't read this before and found it quite good.
gms 13y ago
I'm quite glad you submitted it; thanks. Unfortunate that such an online article could only have been written by a woman, as the likelihood of being on the receiving end of outrage is too high had it come from a man.
- Crake 13y ago
  You have to be the right gender, race, or sex these days to have an opinion these days. Not judging people based on their sex would be extremely sexist!
  - quenlinlom 13y ago
    Oh please. Here we have yet another brogrammer crying his mantears whilst trying to attempt satire (which he failed). It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. If you're misogynistic and you are misogynistic. It's that simple.

shurcooL 13y ago

This... sounds so very spot on. I really enjoyed the article and think it's quite excellent.

superuser2 13y ago

>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. The largest enabling step for me was when I got my own laptop which I was free to break (software-wise) and free to take into my room so I could focus away from the distracting noises of the kitchen/living room. Much of even the HN community would consider this irresponsible parenting. Probably even my parents wouldn't have let a daughter talk to strangers on IRC about something they don't understand. But how else is someone with nontechnical parents supposed to get started? It's sooo much different when it's something you choose to do with your free time, rather than something half-assedly forced on you by parents or school curriculum. Especially to a kid.

weland 13y ago
Yes! Had it not been for the incredible amount of time I spent unsupervised on the Internet, I wouldn't be as good a programmer as I am today. Did I watch porn before I was of legal age? Yep, and I'm in a happy relationship with no sex problems. Break my computer often? Yep, I'd repair it every few days. I was also exposed to a variety of cultures, read about every operating system on Earth (toyed with emulated PDP-11s and VAXen and C64s for days and days) and wrote in every obscure language there is just because I was a kid and had enough time not to worry about whether spending a week to learn Forth was worth the hours I was putting into it.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Same here. Emphasis on "vast quantities," "unsupervised," and "unfiltered." All three were required.
japhyr 13y ago
> which I was free to break (software-wise) I'm curious, were you on a linux os? Did you break your software often? It seems to me people who get on linux early might have an easier time, because they can so easily break their system and rebuild it. It seems like a kid who breaks a windows/ mac os might need to go to their parents to deal with license keys, which might cause the parents to say "no more hacking".

jt2190 13y ago

I'm not sure I understand what the definition of "hacker" is in this article: > Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. > Neither do young men. Hackers are born in childhood, > because that's when the addiction to solving the > puzzle or building something kicks in to those who've > experienced that "victory!" moment like I had when I > imposed my will on a couple electronic primates. It seems to imply that people who simply make their living programming computers, and who came to programming when they were older, aren't "hackers". Am I missing something? (Edit: Given that programming careers can be quite lucrative, and that careers in general are now quite long, it makes economic sense that people would want to join in later in their lives. Short of building a time machine to correct past parenting, must these people be permanently excluded from the industry?)

ForHackernews 13y ago
Not all programmers are hackers. Not all hackers are programmers. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
hrkristian 13y ago
You have to allow for exceptions. Talking about apples is not denying the existence of oranges. It is just very hard for a 20+ to become interested in something that is not related to something prominent in their life thus far. A boy whose life has been about cars and football is not very likely to pick up an interest in butterflies.
Crake 13y ago
I don't think that's what she's saying. Note that she defines the personality type as an interest in "solving the puzzle or building something." Even if you don't have access to computers to tinker with, the sort of person who tends to become good at programming is the type who has always been innately curious and tinkering with something.
gruseom 13y ago
Seems to me the author vividly conveys what she means by "hacker" in the very paragraph you quoted: technologist addiction solving puzzles building things "victory!" moment impose will on electronics These things are done and felt for their own sake and not as a means to an end, like a paycheck. Perhaps that's the main difference.

timr 13y ago

I'm torn. I think she makes some really good points -- particularly about discouraging young girls and the futility of shoving adult humans into foreign social situations -- but I also think she might be rather narrowly defining the personality type of a "hacker", and dismissing behaviors that she doesn't find valuable (in her words: "ephemera -- popularity, beauty and fitting in"). Maybe it's possible that there are plenty of people out there who care about "ephemera", and yet are also capable of programming a computer or soldering things together? I think it's possible. And when I read stuff like this: "Sometimes I want to shout 'you're not a programmer, what are you doing here?!'" it makes me think: this might be a problem. Is it harder to be a hacker if you also have an interest in social media and graphic design and popularity and friendships? Are we defining "hacker" to include only people with bad social skills and no interest outside of technology? I hope not.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Maybe it's possible that there are plenty of people out there who care about "ephemera", and yet are also capable of programming a computer or soldering things together? I think it's possible. Sure, Jobs did. On the other hand, Woz was the tech genius, not Jobs. I've never heard of a tech genius who also cared much about the qualities you mention. This seems more than a coincidence. If it were, then there'd probably be at least one counterexample. Is there someone who is at the level of Woz or Blackwell who also cares about popularity, beauty, and fitting in?
- timr 13y ago
  "Woz was the tech genius, not Jobs....I've never heard of a tech genius who also cared much about the qualities you mention." I hope you've considered that your worldly experience may not be comprehensive. I've known plenty of good programmers who care about all the things I mentioned. They just don't self-select with the Linux user groups of the world, so you're unlikely to come upon them if that's where you hang out.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago

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luxpir 13y ago

Nicely put. Not convinced by the 'special olympics' comment (aren't we working towards complete equality of people here?) but get the sentiment. I personally think the self-confidence to create or do what one wants, put the head above the parapet etc., should be nurtured in every school-goer and beyond. It's normally the cultural norms of schools and wider society that squash any desire to confidently attempt something unusual in life. It's alright for athletes, coming back to the olympic theme, as that particular abnormal activity is celebrated and funded. In essence, too many small-minded, anxious bullies and borderline psychopaths in positions of influence. Influence itself needs decentralizing?

skybrian 13y ago

It's a good rant. There are concrete suggestions for improvement, and also concrete examples of where some people went a little too far. I'm less happy about excluding people who are coming into computing late, though.

Crake 13y ago
>I'm less happy about excluding people who are coming into computing late, though. I don't think she's doing that. Note that she doesn't say that you haven to have been programming since age 2, just that you have to have a natural interest in "solving the puzzle or building something." I came late to programming since I didn't have access to computers I could tinker with, but I was still putzing around with k'nex and getting yelled at for taking household appliances apart from a very young age.
- jkrems 13y ago
  I think it's also important that she points to reasons why women stopped coming to CS early (the Barbie-beauty culture) and mentions the often forgotten "old enough to remember when they worked on teams that were about one third women". I don't think she wants to say that you have to be a bad developer because you start late, but rather that we won't get back to a decent percentage of female developers without a shift in how we treat young girls.

stefantalpalaru 13y ago

> Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls only. When my son asked why he couldn't join, it was explained to him that girls need special help to become interested in technology, and that if there are boys around, the girls will be too scared to try. And that's why we can't use sexism to fight sexism (or mistakenly enforce the same composition of the general population on self-selected subsets).

fudged71 13y ago
I've wanted to mention this for a while but the topic hadn't come up. My engineering faculty tried many things to get more girls in the program, including having girls-only events with the female dean. Of course, all students got these emails, and many of us guys were left wondering why we never had the chance to meet the dean in events like these. Excluding sometimes seems worse than the biases these programs aim to solve.
- codygman 13y ago
  Excluding the more privileged sometimes seems worse than the bias which excludes the less privileged? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
  - pantalaimon 13y ago
    I think it's up to discussion how they are 'less privileged'.
  - hueving 13y ago
    Because now you're excluding both classes. Two exclusions don't make a right, so to speak.
  - facepalm 13y ago
    While I don't agree with your assessment of privileges, let's look at it in another way: should boys be artificially constrained so that they don't outperform girls (and I am not implying boys would outperform girls, just that that is what society seems to think)? If you offer a robotics course only for girls, but not for boys, this is what you are effectively doing. You may end up with a better gender ratio, by preventing boys from getting into robotics (I doubt it'll work that way, but let's assume it does). Is this the way we want society to resolve this issue? Why not foster everybody's talents?

guard-of-terra 13y ago

There is a broader point that we no longer have the open source community we once had. It was about filling every thing with good open source software - be it desktop, server, embedded. On desktop there was a variety of DEs, distributions, software and all that stuff. There was hope that open source will win. But nowdays I see open source largely as a server side movement powering large proprietary platforms. Everybody is using these platforms without questioning. There is no longer anything to win. Plus proliferation of walled gardens. What will new open source hackers work on? Ruby test framework? No they won't. Maybe they will be hacking mobile dev, but that makes you conformist nimble enough to crawl into walled garden. The politics regarding gender are just a part of politics out there.

nitrogen 13y ago
There is a broader point that we no longer have the open source community we once had. I think this may be one of the more tragic results of the 2000-2010 decade. Where have the developers gone, and how could we get them back?
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Well, they lead a "normal" life inside a corporate monster, but hey, they have their iPhone!

VonGuard 13y ago

themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, they solve it for one another before asking the teachers. They work together and don't compete. The boys compete and try to get way far ahead of the teachers, and end up getting lost. The girls all move at the same pace except for the ones who were advanced-class level when they showed up. Second thing: little girls are not affraid, and not any less able to do this. It's a societal thing that pushes them away. They see the girls in their classes interested in other things, so they don't get interested in computers. Instead, they get interested in facebook, not the computer itself, because their older siblings use it, their friends use it, and they then learn that computers are for socializing. Given the proper environment, they can learn anything a geek would learn, it's just that they don't get spoon fed computer knowledge, they get spoon fed facebook, Snapchat, Pokemon and Minecraft knowledge. Third: Minecraft cuts across all genders. All kids absolutely adore Minecraft, and about 50% want to learn programming just to make mods for the game. Finally, girls who come to our classes keep coming back. They have a little social group with the other girls, and they welcome in other girls. The boys are left out, mostly, but that's fine as they're not having trouble learning or keeping up. The girls in our classes are their own support mechanism, and they tend to become friends outside of classes. So, learn from this what you will.

gruseom 13y ago
How do you get kids modding Minecraft? I suggested this a little while ago for a kid in my brother-in-law's Grade 8 class, but then regretted it because the tools for doing it seemed inaccessible to beginners.
- VonGuard 13y ago
  You don't. It's Java. It's like a kid asking you to build a car engine from scratch day one. We kindly point them to our Scratch class as a way to learn how to program.

krstck 13y ago

Oooh, this was an icy stab right at the core. She's completely right: >Dump her in a situation that operates on different social scripts than she's accustomed to, full of people talking about a subject she doesn't yet understand. Then tell her the community is hostile toward women and therefore doesn't have enough of them, all while showing her off like a prize poodle so you can feel good about recruiting a females This explains, better than I ever could, why I've always felt weird about all of the attention on getting women into programming. As a kid, I loved programming. When I became a teenager, I got wind that it wasn't something "cool" and got spooked. For someone as insecure as I was, having a hobby that I couldn't really "explain" to normal people was embarrassing. Probably if I had known a single other kid/girl that liked computers like I did, I might have continued on that path and not been distracted for about 10 years.

marquis 13y ago
That's the reason why classes for girls (not necessarily primarily but directed towards) work so well. Being in a room full of men with few or no women in ANY circumstance is awkward unless you are top of your game.
- HedgeMage 13y ago
  Sure, it might be awkward at first for girls who don't have a lot of experience in mixed-gender environments. If it's a friendly mixed-gender environment, the awkwardness wears off pretty soon. I've watched it happen. On the other hand, "foo for women" events are high-pressure environments that put a spotlight on poor newbies. It's a way of saying "You aren't just here to learn something, you're representing women, you're here to prove something for all of us". It implies that the mainstream groups aren't safe or okay places for women to learn. Additionally, they prevent those newbie women from learning the social scripts and memes that will help them fit in with mainstream hacker culture (or even programmer culture), so they get to be total outsiders as juniors instead of as freshmen, which really sucks.
  - supersystem 13y ago

shiven 13y ago

Can't upvote this enough. This article should be required reading for every HN reader.

mistakoala 13y ago

I groaned at what sounded like another SJW article on 'teh evil patriarchy of technology'. I'm glad I read on for an interesting and original viewpoint. More Susan Sons' and fewer Adria Richards', please. The former have meaningful and constructive contributions to make while the latter just make political hay for their own self-interest. As a learner, the perception of an increased emphasis on identity politics is off-putting to me. Not because I secretly want to have a career and interest in tech to further my patriarchal tendencies, but because it's shifting attention away from the interesting stuff - the stuff that makes tech fun and interesting in the first place.

forgottenpass 13y ago
While I don't agree 100% with what you say here, you more or less drive at why I posted it. There are some conversations about gender and tech that, while useful in their own right, also become exclusionary of other possible framing and interpretation of issues and events at hand. "SJW", while neither an apt nor particularly nice monicker, does (to some) refer to a practicing particular brands of off-putting rhetoric that are uncompromising to a fault. I see people largely in agreement talk past each other because one person's mind is already made up in a way incompatible with someone else's experiences. A HN commenter once suggested that agreement has become a form of social signaling. I don't know if I believe that, but it would be dangerous and counterproductive because arguments need iteration. If you can't make your case in a way that convinces people with your same goals, you're not going to convince people that don't yet share your goals.
- mistakoala 13y ago
  I recognise that tech has its politics and is rooted in it to an extent (Cypherpunks etc). I'm not particularly against that or blind to it. What I dislike is the braiding of tech with identity politics issues by people who are unaccommodating, and hostile in their language and behaviour, if not their motives. Here, I feel that SJW is an apt description for people whose interests are primarily identity politics. It's not a term that I apply universally. Sons made her point in a thoughtful way. She was not hostile (explicitly or implicitly). If there are issues regarding identity politics and tech, I'd rather hear about it from people like her. The pity is (in an awkwardly expressed way), because of her position, she doesn't necessarily want a platform from which to say things on these matters because she doesn't frame her experience in terms of gender (and that seems to carry through into the comments).

dev1n 13y ago

Growing up watching shows like "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius" definitely shaped me as a child into the tech freak I am today. Girls getting barbies thrown at them when they are 12 does not help put girls into the tech sector. We need television shows like "Diane's Laboratory" or "Jennifer Neutron Girl Genius" to get girls interested in tech. Hit 'em when they're young.

facepalm 13y ago
Girls don't get barbies thrown at them, they beg for them. The are expensive, too.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  Not if they never find out that there exist things called "barbies". We never introduced our girls to barbies or anything -- only cars, legos, etc. etc. and they're more than happy with them. I think barbies dolls should be outright banned. Why're we teaching our children to worry about their looks at such a young age? That's what barbie dolls are -- "pretty woman", woman with obnoxiously pretty dresses, lipsticks, etc. etc. Why're we normalizing that kind of behavior for children?
  - facepalm 13y ago
    Maybe Barbie doesn't teach them to worry about looks, but lets them relax about it? Barbie is pretty, after all. Like boys playing with batman figurines, they have a powerful actor that can do anything they want. I don't want to defend them. I always chided my sister for playing with barbies, but she enjoyed it. She grew up to be a normal, non-pink woman with a serious occupation, so the damage from playing with barbies seems to have been limited.
  - Crake 13y ago
    >I think barbies dolls should be outright banned. You do realize there are plenty of girls out there who love their barbies, right? Why do you hate them?
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marquis 13y ago

>Young women don't magically become technologists at 22 I did exactly that. I have a degree in the arts, but always loved physics and pursued that secondarily. I failed physics because I had taken arts instead of mathematics but found that that didn't stop me learning C and building all the arts programs I ever wanted. Quite some years ago now and I was an outlier but it's not too uncommon. Good schools are now getting girls into robotics and coding before puberty. That's when you get exited. I loved messing with radios and old VHS players when I was a kid, and probably MOST importantly my father was a technologist: exposure at a young age is everything.

HedgeMage 13y ago
Ahh, but it wasn't magic...as you go on to say, the seeds were planted when you were young. "messing with radios and old VHS players" is a precursor to becoming a good technologist. It's not about what you played with, it's about early experiences of problem solving, of making and/or fixing and/or tinkering in any context.
- marquis 13y ago
  >but it wasn't magic No. I'm also not an world-class tennis player even though I played tennis since I was able to hold a racket and had good teachers. I just happen to be good at problem solving, making and fixing and tinkering. Most of friends who were at school who liked to build things also went on to have technical careers, just not with computer programming. So, I think that we are only starting to see a new generation coming up for whom computers aren't something they met when they were older, so there will start to be a lot more natural female programmers among them. In my generation it was rare for a father to take interest in a girl's technical inclinations, and I think I'm really lucky for that early experience. My point is that I just think this is a phase and a generation not far away won't face this gender discrepancy.
  - mitochondrion 13y ago
    I'd just like to throw it out there that perhaps your problem solving ability developed in lockstep with your tinkering.

piokuc 13y ago

Great text by Susan on very important issue. I'm a male software engineer and the predominance of male pears has been the only major downside of being in the business for me ever since i started studying CS almost 20 yrs ago. It should be understood and fixed for the sake of future generations.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

Good to see this article getting the attention it deserves, after it was unfairly overlooked the first time.

arrrg 13y ago

Nice, complete misunderstanding of feminism and what most people argue for. Nice attacking of straw men. Nice rant for the status quo. I’m sad now.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Please elaborate. There's no such thing as a "misunderstanding of feminism". Feminism hasn't been a coherent movement in decades. It's a highly stratified network of ideologies and schools, some of which are only vaguely united under the pretext of social justice, but which have radically different views. Some are even openly and proudly transphobic. I'd like it if we stopped pretending feminism is some zenith of civil rights. It did help in the past, but it is now worn out and has long been a parody.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Feminist thought is diverse, sure, but there are certain schools of thought that are by far more widespread. This article misrepresents those. I do not know any feminist, for example, who would ever think of telling a woman to dress more gender-appropriate. Such gender policing is abhorred and practically unheard of. It’s just so weird to read about that as some sort of feminist idea. Also, feminism is super-rad. Proud feminist!
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    The most widespread one at the moment is postmodern feminism, which is a complete joke. I don't know what exactly do you mean by "gender-appropriate", but there are feminist movements which embrace traditional ideas of femininity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_feminism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_feminism I'm assuming by "super-rad" you're trying to say you're a super radical feminist. Good to see you're proud of your little ideology.
    - arrrg 13y ago
      Holy shit. Please stop seeing demons everywhere. And work on improving your view of reality. It’s severely distorted and makes little sense. Also, deliberate obtuseness is not very cool.

e12e 13y ago

Many good points in this article, but I think it falls short in analysing what's changed (or what's wrong). > Most of all, I'm disappointed. I had a haven, a place where no one cared what I looked like, what my body was like or about any ephemera—they cared about what I could do—and this culture shift has robbed me of my haven. At least I had that haven. The girls who follow me missed out on it. Well, yes. Computing and programming has become (more) mainstream -- it's no longer a tiny sub-culture free of mainstream bias. I'm sure there are disappointed skaters, surfers and punks out there too. I don't think the best way forward is to throw out years of feminist research, or think that "if we could all just get along like before, the problem would go away". It's not that it wouldn't go away, it's just that we need to make an effort to get there. One way to do that is to have sex-segregated introduction classes. They shouldn't all be segregated, nor is it the only thing that we should be doing -- but that is one way of creating a safe and rewarding environment. If we have tutors managing to get mixed classes going, in a way that works well, then that's great too (see VonGuard's comment for example). Generally if you can grab kids before they've been hammered into groupthink about toys, fun and gender roles (which is harder and harder to do with increasing tv commercials, product placement etc) -- then kids don't need to be "de-programmed" -- they can just be allowed to be kids. And they'll play and learn by themselves. But the later you start, the more likely you'll need to have a plan of attack if you want everyone to get a fair shake, and similar participation. I do think she's right in calling out a lot of the crap that people do in the name of "political correctness" -- without much thought about how or why, though. Being righteous isn't enough; if you're not right, you're probably just making things worse. [edit: I don't usually comment down-votes -- but I'd like to see a comment. The general idea is to down vote submissions that don't contribute to the discussion -- while I certainly expect many to dis-agree I certainly hope this post isn't perceived as vapid?]

belorn 13y ago
> I don't think the best way forward is to throw out years of feminist research. That sentence gave me a nice smile. feminist research is poor at best, non-existent at worse. Take affirmative action in education. Give me a single study that shows that it a) produce long-term professionals, b) is better than the base line, and c) if it has any of the negative and well documented long term effects inherent of single-sex education. There are plenty of feminist research that shows there exist an gender imbalance in STEM, and most studies gives one or other kind of theory around the why. The theories are however rarely if ever tested. The "years of feminist research" has not gotten to that part yet, and won't until we demand more from researchers than summery of latest census data.

Wintamute 13y ago

Blimey this piece is spot on. It manages to basically sum up many of the wordless, un-expressed proto-opinions I have on on the matter into one incredibly coherent package. Lucid, rational and heart felt - great discourse.

donaq 13y ago

"Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. Neither do young men. Hackers are born in childhood..." Nitpick: I actually only started learning to program in university as an undergraduate (I was ~21). I have a female friend who had a similar start, so you don't necessarily have to start as a child. It's not gymnastics. The thrill of solving puzzles can be experienced at any time in your life, I think. Otherwise, great article.

oh_sigh 13y ago
I don't really understand your thought process. You seem to get it, but you don't. When you learn to program has nothing to do with when you become a hacker.
auggierose 13y ago
I don't like solving puzzles. Something that was put together by somebody else, for the sole purpose of you trying to figure out what it was. How stupid. It's for people who believe in god.

overgard 13y ago

Funny the lack of social justice warriors in this thread to save her from herself. (Which is to say: fantastic article, thanks).

tragic 13y ago

Very interesting article. The problem I have with the particular form the tech-feminist crusades have taken is that it seems to me to be diversionary at a fundamental level. Women are not just under-represented in tech, but in the majority of the most lucrative professions as a whole. So, unless we accept the bogus argument that women are just naturally worse at stuff other than babies, we must assume that this is a problem with society as a whole (the dolls-versus-lego thing is a part of that, but not the only one). Women-only classes and so on may or may not help the particular women involved into the industry - I don't know. Presumably that can be empirically studied by people with the time and resources to do so. But the underlying problem is a matter for 'concerned citizens', not the tech industry as the tech industry. Crusading, say, for 'codes of conduct' at conferences has the seductive appeal of a modest and realisable goal; unfortunately, there is no nice, pat answer to gender inequality in society, as the last three centuries of 'concerned citizens' have learned. To put it bluntly, it's not dick jokes at PyCon keeping women out, any more than it's dick jokes at law school that produces the gender gap in law firms.

lexcorvus 13y ago
Women are not just under-represented in tech, but in the majority of the most lucrative professions as a whole. So, unless we accept the bogus argument that women are just naturally worse at stuff other than babies, we must assume that this is a problem with society as a whole (the dolls-versus-lego thing is a part of that, but not the only one). What about the possibility that men and women are different, and in particular that men are more naturally inclined to do things like sacrifice time and flexibility in order to make more money? There's no reason to expect a priori that men and women are identical in this regard. Indeed, evaluating Homo sapiens as a sexually dimorphic bipedal ape whose sexes have different reproductive incentives, it would be very surprising to find otherwise.
chrishynes 13y ago
I don't understand this line of thought. On the one hand, you obviously see women as disadvantaged in the current system. On the other, your ideal world is one in which women basically become men. Obviously, both men and women should be able to do what they want, whether that be raise a family, provide for that family, some of both, or not have a family at all. But does is a higher ratio of men to women in a given profession causatively show that women are disadvantaged? Is it only a good ratio when it is exactly 50/50%? You believe so, and don't consider any other alternative. Or could it be that it is a matter of personal choice based on a biological bias toward certain choices? You don't see the male 99% of garbage collectors as being an issue to be resolved. Maybe women tend to turn down the high pressure jobs and prefer to spend more time socializing and with family compared to men. Many studies have suggested the same. Could it be an issue of the ratio of testosterone vs. estrogen? Those types of hormonal differences are known to greatly influence the types of choices we're discussing here.

surana90 13y ago

Very well written! It points out correctly what has gone wrong with feminism movement in recent years.

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Fuxy 13y ago

She will probably be glad to hear there's still young hackers out there who don't give a shit about this feminist propaganda. I for one don't care what gender you are the rules are the same regardless of gender. If i happen to have a complaint about your code or anything else for that matter and you happen to be a girl ...well what do i care? On the other hand every girl in STEM that constantly complains about how awkward the guys are just outed them selves as not a hacker gir. A real hacker girl knows that the guys are awkward but it's not intentional the just never bothered with social skills. A real hacker girl also puts as much value into fasion and the likes like any other hacker which is to say very little at all. So that well dressed and social girl in IT is most likely not really a hacker then again this is just a generalization and would gladly be proven wrong. Hell if you happen to know someone like that i would love meet her that is quite rare. The reality of people like us with a curious nature is the we never find time to learn social skills and fasion we're just too busy satisfying our curiosity. I personally would love to have a better fasion sense but i really need to get that arch install working perfectly :)

loladesoto 13y ago

i am one of 10 children (7 girls including myself and 3 boys). 100% of us went into STEM. what's more, we are Latino so growing up in a thoroughly geeky environment was, well, unique. in high school i found safety in geeky societies like Academic Decathlon. i went to a science/engineering university and dropped out to work in tech. and as much as i love my work, i have always been aware (sometimes acutely) of being one of the only women in the room. i'd be lying if it didn't chap my hide sometimes. i have skills commonly found among the male population (i am an entrepreneur, i know how to code) but it's a lonely existence. i still look like a woman, wear heels and makeup for the fun of it when i want to, and am relatively short! my point is, i stand out from the norm and people are constantly being surprised by me/my abilities. which means i have to do a lot of explaining and seeking out of mentors, rather than spending that time thriving in the simple assumption that i am precisely where i am supposed to be. men have that. the really self-reflective ones realize that. the awesome thing is, the women in my family have not only been fighting the good fight in STEM, they are passing the baton. each one of my nieces--all 8 of them--is encouraged to build, tear apart, and reconstruct stuff. these kids have to be torn away from Minecraft, unglued from their laptops and iPads. i teach girls how to code and do graphic design in my free time, and one of my favorite questions is: "When is the Maker Faire? When is the Maker Faire!" with sparkly eyes. my experience in tech hasn't been like @HedgeMage's. although i didn't start coding until later in my career, i have always been a hacker and the dirty little secret is that girls just aren't encouraged to hack. some of us are born that way, however. and that's a pretty amazing way to be on the inside, regardless of how we look or are treated on the outside.

jami 13y ago

It's great that this author's upbringing was such that a robotics class for girls wasn't needed. My mom also taught her daughters that we're people, so of course I wanted a computer like the other smart kids at school (in the '80s). But some children are raised to think of things as "for boys" and "for girls", and for those kids, a class for girls is absolutely useful. It isn't that those kids aren't naturally smart enough; it's that everything in their lives is telling them that robots are for boys. It's a shame that someone botched the explanation of the robotics class to her son.

lukasm 13y ago

I remember when I was 10 my dad set BIOS password so I could only play for 2 hours a day max. I manage to guess the password. It was "dad" :). When he was coming back from work I quickly turn off the PC. After 3rd time he noticed that PC was hot.

beauzero 13y ago

Awesome article. As a father of two daughters I appreciate some of the anecdotes that you put forward.

sdegutis 13y ago

Wow. Susan Sons at 12 years old was way better at open source software than I am today! We need more children like Susan Sons in the world, and we need to give them unlimited, supervised computer/internet access.