> I think she makes some really good points -- particularly about discouraging young girls and the futility of shoving adult humans into foreign social situati

> 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"). Also the ephemera are gateways to something less ephemeral: social contacts and human capital. I don't think this can be understated. Most women are social to a degree that most men will never be, and this is ok because being social is being powerful in every way that matters in day to day life. The thing is, I am not sure one can really be technical and social in the same moment. These are very different thought processes. Social context is fluid and changing, and it can't be directly measured. So these are different. It's funny. I suspect that my grandmother (who introduced me to computers and punchcards(!) would agree with everything in this article. Of course she mostly programmed in Fortran relating to her work in astrophysics (a field she entered in 1964). > 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? I do think that brain cycles are finite, and while I am male I tend to find that if the very things that make me good at solving certain sets of technical problems can make me socially out of touch at times.