8 ms·

Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014

58 points by FloorD 13y ago

prof_hobart 13y ago
It would help if there was some explicit explanation of why they think this is necessary. Are women being discriminated against when the apply to the more general Summer Of Code events, or are they choosing not to apply because they are (or are worried about being) harassed or ostracized when they go to those events? And if either of these are issues, it seems far healthier in the long term to address those problems rather than starting a girls first event.
- nmrm 13y ago
  From personal experience, it's a cultural issue. Admissions aren't discriminatory, but summer camps of this sort are typically dominated by males. Being the only "different" person in a largely homogeneous group can cause all sorts of difficulties at that age. Sense of community and belonging are as important, if not more important, than instruction. FWIW, male-dominated summer camps are a problem for males and females alike. Many middle school boys don't like having the sorts of lunch time conversations that groups of middle school guys invariably gravitate toward. If you have a way to solve the massive over-representation of males in summer programming camps, please share! Until such solutions exist, camps such as this one are undeniably crucial.
  - prof_hobart 13y ago
    If you can organise a separate event for females, you can organise the same group of females to go to the main event.
lutusp 13y ago
Do I need to explain what's wrong with this idea? Imagine that I started a program called "Rails boys summer of code". The alternative is obvious -- have qualified girls apply to an appropriately named rails summer of code, and if they're rejected based on their gender, take the responsible parties to court. This is how gender equality comes into being -- not by creating a set-aside program conspicuous only for its overt sexism. The underlying message of this program is that as programmers, girls are different than boys. This is both false and absurd -- mathematics, logic and computer science have no gender.
- bighi 13y ago
  I wish there were more people like you in the world. Fighting sexism with more sexism is not the answer.
- not_paul_graham 13y ago
  I didn't have access to a (personal) computer till a few years before starting college. I'm currently using a 3 year old machine, granted it's still pretty fast for my needs, but if I saw a program that was only for girls, and there weren't any alternative for boys (at the age group this is targeted at) I would have been quite disappointed. I don't bear any ill-will towards this program, but I feel that kids are mostly prejudice free, and this makes them see some form of gender discrimination. What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black?
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black? Already exists: http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ As a disclaimer, I have no opinion on them as I am not really informed about their activities.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black? How on earth did you draw this conclusion from a post in which I make exactly the opposite point? My point was that programs that single out groups, that sequester, are counterproductive. Read it again. On re-reading your post, I now think you attached it to the wrong comment. That's the only rational explanation.
- natasham25 13y ago
  I got my little sister - almost 15 - to apply for this program. It's important for me that she has a very safe and welcoming environment to get excited about coding - since this will be her introduction to it. I feel like having 15-16 year old boys in the program would be very distracting and counterproductive for her. This is from experience. I'm a woman who codes, and I mostly go to the women who code meetups because I can learn in a safe space that I personally enjoy. The first time I went to a normal Rails meetup - with majority guys - there were two guys having a pissing contest about whether ERB is better than HAML, and then another guy was apologizing to me for the two guys being "so technical". In meetups where there are only women, we get to actually learn and support each other, and it's great. I want the same environment for my sister to learn in.
bighi 13y ago
Yep, that's the way. Fight sexism with more sexism! Go girls!
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Honestly if the foundation's goal is to support women trying to break into the programming community without imposing any external ideology (particularly not any virulent postmodernism), I likely wouldn't have any qualms with donating. I'm not really familiar with what they actually do, however, and whether they have any notable efficacy.
parennoob 13y ago
As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it), it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the beneficiaries of programs such as these on the basis of their gender. It is absolutely true that they too probably have been discriminated against in the technology field, but in the overall social arena, they are in a much better position than, say, Asian men. As a result, in an average tech workplace (which is a combination of technical and social factors), I think Asian people are at just as much, if not more at a disadvantage than women. I don't want to feel animosity, or even ambivalence towards such programs, but given the reason above, it is a bit difficult for me not to. Any thoughts/solutions that the HN crowd might have about this? By nature, I'm not particularly inclined towards $SOCIETAL_GROUP-specific programs, but if that is the solution people think is useful, I'd be willing to advocate for it in the future, and focus towards soliciting donations, etc. for that instead. [edit: Downvoters, I'm asking for opinions or solutions. Why not offer one in addition to your downvote?]
- TheFullStack 13y ago
  I'm also an Asian male and you're right about the implicit (and sometimes explicit) discrimination we deal with. I was at a party last summer and someone called me a "Jap" but was "just kidding." White people don't deal with this. However, I also benefit from being an Asian male software developer. Whenever I meet new people in business, I am automatically assumed to be smart which has proven highly profitable. Finding work is never an issue and I make quite a comfortable living because people with money assume I am good at what I do - I have less to prove than a programmer who is say, Latino or perhaps female. My solution? If you can't beat em, join em. Why don't you volunteer to teach at a girls code school? Might meet some cute female instructors who also like programming - pretty rare. Use your strengths in whatever way you can. As a post-script to the "Jap" guy, a few weeks later he got fired from his job and has been out of work since. He is a high school educated white male in his late 20s. We all have our challenges and if being white also included being stupid, ignorant and money-less like this guy, I'll take Asian.
rollo 13y ago
Sounds like it was great last year, so it's absolutely worth it. Such events are definitely needed.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  They're not just needed, they're _massively_ successful. While I have some small issue with some of the branding, it gets people to show up. I know someone who tried to get a 'new people programming' event started for six months, never got more than 4 or 5 people, and they were all men, even though he was trying to be woman-friendly. He then changed to make it a RailsGirls event, and he had 300 people apply for the 15 seats he was budgeting for...
- bttf 13y ago
  Why are they needed? To counter genderism? If so, doesn't it seem self-defeating to try to outgrow our sexist prejudices by actively countering them? If women have suffered discrimination in the software development community, we can all make an effort not to let it happen. But to create an institutionalized/organized effort towards countering prejudice is to strengthen it by latching on to it, rather than acknowledging it and letting it go. EDIT: To clarify my point, I think we all need to be aware of not only genderism but unfounded prejudice in general, towards all human beings. An institution/organization or summer camp towards the equality of all seems to me a more equitable premise rather than a 'Girls-only' camp, which seems to be legitimate only because most of us are aware of the historical prejudices towards women.
  - harrylyme 13y ago
    I hear that there are preschools in Sweden where any gender specific language usage is expressedly prohibited (e.g. young children aren't told if they are boys or girls to prevent perpetuating gender stereotypes during their formative years) Concerning gender equality: is there any lesson to be learned by the Sweden example? NYTimes Article on Swedish Pre-schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-school-de-emphasizes-gender-lines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-schoo...
  - 13y ago
stefantalpalaru 13y ago
Be careful who you donate to. Sometimes in the future you might become the CEO of Mozilla and this kind of sexism might be considered unacceptable enough to spark a boycott campaign.
- wwwwwwwwww 13y ago
  Be careful about what topics you make political jokes about. Don't forget that your rights end where my feelings begin, especially regarding social issues.
  - dingaling 13y ago
    > Don't forget that your rights end where my feelings begin I think the quote is that "your rights end at the tip of my nose". No-one's rights should be infringed because someone is merely displeased or offended.
    - wwwwwwwwww 13y ago
      I'm not quoting anybody. My comment is a spin on the parent's comment on Mozilla. The joke is that a foundation that claims to have "freedom of speech" as one of its core values is having its CEO step down because 5 years ago he expressed an opinion that hurts lots of peoples feelings. Hence, "your rights end where my feelings begin"
- username223 13y ago
  How is a (silly and misguided, IMHO) set of perks for some people at all related to a campaign to deny basic rights to some other people because you think they're icky? Live and let live, yo!
  - wyager 13y ago
    So you're saying it's ok to give "perks" based on gender, but not to detract based on gender? Those seem like different ways of saying the same thing. Discriminating in favor of one group is more or less isometric to discriminating against the other group. A code camp that was boys-only would get torn apart on hacker news, even though it follows your definition of a "set of perks for some people".
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nmrm 13y ago
This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments. As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I think this is important. I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I stopped programming entirely and got into math for a while afterwards. Oh, and I'm male... If a girl joined any random summer camp 12 years ago, she would be the only girl in the group. This may have changed since then, but I'm sure not by much. Sense of belonging and community is important, and it's not unreasonable to suspect that a male-dominated summer camp would not provide a girl with that sense of community. Especially at that age. A more ideal solution might be increasing the number of girls interested in computer science so that this simply is not a problem. Unfortunately, it's unrealistic to assume that will happen over night. In the mean time, camps such as this might decrease the social barriers to entry for girls interested in CS. That's a Good Thing.
- level 13y ago
  I absolutely agree with this. I talked with a major contributor to http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ and he helped me understand that it's not about keeping men back or fighting sexism with sexism, it's about providing opportunities where people thought they previously didn't exist. STEM and the computer industry are heavily dominated by men (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523172), and the role models to introduce women into these fields just aren't there (although it is getting better). Programs like this are there to show that an industry isn't specifically for only men or women, and allow girls to make the choice to code, even if they previously hadn't thought of it as an option.
- computer 13y ago
  I have experience with summer camps for Mathematics (as a participant) for kids from 10-18. I'm not sure how they manage to achieve it, but it was probably 55%/45% male/female. I think that half the camp elders being female helped a lot, as well as wise promotion and word of mouth after 20 successful years. I feel that the camps being mixed added a ton to the experience. I can't begin to describe all the benefits, but for me as a boy, the camps first showed me that both genders can be interested in nerdy stuff, and that such interests are actually fine and quite normal. However, if it would have been 95% boys, I think it would have been better to split them by gender. Especially among children it's hard to be the only girl in a group of only boys. Then, once the girl group starts to grow by intelligent promotion and word of mouth, perhaps you can merge the camps once the split is more favorable.
azakai 13y ago
I tried to donate to this, but 1. The popup to donate shows up on a page where the URL is not https. This looks wrong, but closer inspection shows that it is an iframe that is in fact properly secured. But had I not known how to find that out (right-click, show page info), I would not enter my credit card info on a non-https site. 2. My card was declined, the first time in my life that that has ever happened. I triple-checked the information I entered and it is valid. Could be my fault, but given I've never had a problem before, perhaps an issue with the site? Based on those two things, this project might be missing out on some amount of donations (at least mine, since I don't have another card to try). Hopefully that's fixable.
- smtddr 13y ago
  Personally, I think that's a web UI design flaw where the page loads non https but a credit-card form has a POST as https. Also, I'm kinda concerned that vice-versa could happen. I wish browsers had a feature to detect what appears to be a form asking for sensitive info and let me know if the POST will happen over https or not. Basically, stop me from proceeding anytime a form is about to submit containing a field of 16 digits with some kind of modal warning dialog.
- bullfight 13y ago
  On point 2 I went through the same thing. Your card was declined because these donations are being routed through the Travis Foundation's Stripe account which is now based in Germany. As an international org based in Germany your bank/cc flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent. I don't think Rails Girls/Travis can do much about this, you need to call your bank to get them to allow the transaction.
  - azakai 13y ago
    Requiring people to call their bank is a much higher barrier than it should be, though? I buy stuff online all the time and things just work. I hope Rails Girls can use another payment processing solution.
Grue3 13y ago
Why would you want to expose children to the horror that is Ruby on Rails in the first place?

58 points by FloorD 13y ago

It would help if there was some explicit explanation of why they think this is necessary. Are women being discriminated against when the apply to the more general Summer Of Code events, or are they choosing not to apply because they are (or are worried about being) harassed or ostracized when they go to those events? And if either of these are issues, it seems far healthier in the long term to address those problems rather than starting a girls first event.

nmrm 13y ago
From personal experience, it's a cultural issue. Admissions aren't discriminatory, but summer camps of this sort are typically dominated by males. Being the only "different" person in a largely homogeneous group can cause all sorts of difficulties at that age. Sense of community and belonging are as important, if not more important, than instruction. FWIW, male-dominated summer camps are a problem for males and females alike. Many middle school boys don't like having the sorts of lunch time conversations that groups of middle school guys invariably gravitate toward. If you have a way to solve the massive over-representation of males in summer programming camps, please share! Until such solutions exist, camps such as this one are undeniably crucial.
- prof_hobart 13y ago
  If you can organise a separate event for females, you can organise the same group of females to go to the main event.

lutusp 13y ago

Do I need to explain what's wrong with this idea? Imagine that I started a program called "Rails boys summer of code". The alternative is obvious -- have qualified girls apply to an appropriately named rails summer of code, and if they're rejected based on their gender, take the responsible parties to court. This is how gender equality comes into being -- not by creating a set-aside program conspicuous only for its overt sexism. The underlying message of this program is that as programmers, girls are different than boys. This is both false and absurd -- mathematics, logic and computer science have no gender.

bighi 13y ago
I wish there were more people like you in the world. Fighting sexism with more sexism is not the answer.
not_paul_graham 13y ago
I didn't have access to a (personal) computer till a few years before starting college. I'm currently using a 3 year old machine, granted it's still pretty fast for my needs, but if I saw a program that was only for girls, and there weren't any alternative for boys (at the age group this is targeted at) I would have been quite disappointed. I don't bear any ill-will towards this program, but I feel that kids are mostly prejudice free, and this makes them see some form of gender discrimination. What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black?
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black? Already exists: http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ As a disclaimer, I have no opinion on them as I am not really informed about their activities.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > What is next, you'll ask for funding for programs targeted at girls that are only hispanic or indian or black? How on earth did you draw this conclusion from a post in which I make exactly the opposite point? My point was that programs that single out groups, that sequester, are counterproductive. Read it again. On re-reading your post, I now think you attached it to the wrong comment. That's the only rational explanation.
natasham25 13y ago
I got my little sister - almost 15 - to apply for this program. It's important for me that she has a very safe and welcoming environment to get excited about coding - since this will be her introduction to it. I feel like having 15-16 year old boys in the program would be very distracting and counterproductive for her. This is from experience. I'm a woman who codes, and I mostly go to the women who code meetups because I can learn in a safe space that I personally enjoy. The first time I went to a normal Rails meetup - with majority guys - there were two guys having a pissing contest about whether ERB is better than HAML, and then another guy was apologizing to me for the two guys being "so technical". In meetups where there are only women, we get to actually learn and support each other, and it's great. I want the same environment for my sister to learn in.

bighi 13y ago

Yep, that's the way. Fight sexism with more sexism! Go girls!

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

Honestly if the foundation's goal is to support women trying to break into the programming community without imposing any external ideology (particularly not any virulent postmodernism), I likely wouldn't have any qualms with donating. I'm not really familiar with what they actually do, however, and whether they have any notable efficacy.

parennoob 13y ago

As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it), it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the beneficiaries of programs such as these on the basis of their gender. It is absolutely true that they too probably have been discriminated against in the technology field, but in the overall social arena, they are in a much better position than, say, Asian men. As a result, in an average tech workplace (which is a combination of technical and social factors), I think Asian people are at just as much, if not more at a disadvantage than women. I don't want to feel animosity, or even ambivalence towards such programs, but given the reason above, it is a bit difficult for me not to. Any thoughts/solutions that the HN crowd might have about this? By nature, I'm not particularly inclined towards $SOCIETAL_GROUP-specific programs, but if that is the solution people think is useful, I'd be willing to advocate for it in the future, and focus towards soliciting donations, etc. for that instead. [edit: Downvoters, I'm asking for opinions or solutions. Why not offer one in addition to your downvote?]

TheFullStack 13y ago
I'm also an Asian male and you're right about the implicit (and sometimes explicit) discrimination we deal with. I was at a party last summer and someone called me a "Jap" but was "just kidding." White people don't deal with this. However, I also benefit from being an Asian male software developer. Whenever I meet new people in business, I am automatically assumed to be smart which has proven highly profitable. Finding work is never an issue and I make quite a comfortable living because people with money assume I am good at what I do - I have less to prove than a programmer who is say, Latino or perhaps female. My solution? If you can't beat em, join em. Why don't you volunteer to teach at a girls code school? Might meet some cute female instructors who also like programming - pretty rare. Use your strengths in whatever way you can. As a post-script to the "Jap" guy, a few weeks later he got fired from his job and has been out of work since. He is a high school educated white male in his late 20s. We all have our challenges and if being white also included being stupid, ignorant and money-less like this guy, I'll take Asian.

rollo 13y ago

Sounds like it was great last year, so it's absolutely worth it. Such events are definitely needed.

steveklabnik 13y ago
They're not just needed, they're _massively_ successful. While I have some small issue with some of the branding, it gets people to show up. I know someone who tried to get a 'new people programming' event started for six months, never got more than 4 or 5 people, and they were all men, even though he was trying to be woman-friendly. He then changed to make it a RailsGirls event, and he had 300 people apply for the 15 seats he was budgeting for...
bttf 13y ago
Why are they needed? To counter genderism? If so, doesn't it seem self-defeating to try to outgrow our sexist prejudices by actively countering them? If women have suffered discrimination in the software development community, we can all make an effort not to let it happen. But to create an institutionalized/organized effort towards countering prejudice is to strengthen it by latching on to it, rather than acknowledging it and letting it go. EDIT: To clarify my point, I think we all need to be aware of not only genderism but unfounded prejudice in general, towards all human beings. An institution/organization or summer camp towards the equality of all seems to me a more equitable premise rather than a 'Girls-only' camp, which seems to be legitimate only because most of us are aware of the historical prejudices towards women.
- harrylyme 13y ago
  I hear that there are preschools in Sweden where any gender specific language usage is expressedly prohibited (e.g. young children aren't told if they are boys or girls to prevent perpetuating gender stereotypes during their formative years) Concerning gender equality: is there any lesson to be learned by the Sweden example? NYTimes Article on Swedish Pre-schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-school-de-emphasizes-gender-lines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-schoo...
- 13y ago

stefantalpalaru 13y ago

Be careful who you donate to. Sometimes in the future you might become the CEO of Mozilla and this kind of sexism might be considered unacceptable enough to spark a boycott campaign.

wwwwwwwwww 13y ago
Be careful about what topics you make political jokes about. Don't forget that your rights end where my feelings begin, especially regarding social issues.
- dingaling 13y ago
  > Don't forget that your rights end where my feelings begin I think the quote is that "your rights end at the tip of my nose". No-one's rights should be infringed because someone is merely displeased or offended.
  - wwwwwwwwww 13y ago
    I'm not quoting anybody. My comment is a spin on the parent's comment on Mozilla. The joke is that a foundation that claims to have "freedom of speech" as one of its core values is having its CEO step down because 5 years ago he expressed an opinion that hurts lots of peoples feelings. Hence, "your rights end where my feelings begin"
username223 13y ago
How is a (silly and misguided, IMHO) set of perks for some people at all related to a campaign to deny basic rights to some other people because you think they're icky? Live and let live, yo!
- wyager 13y ago
  So you're saying it's ok to give "perks" based on gender, but not to detract based on gender? Those seem like different ways of saying the same thing. Discriminating in favor of one group is more or less isometric to discriminating against the other group. A code camp that was boys-only would get torn apart on hacker news, even though it follows your definition of a "set of perks for some people".

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nmrm 13y ago

This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments. As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I think this is important. I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I stopped programming entirely and got into math for a while afterwards. Oh, and I'm male... If a girl joined any random summer camp 12 years ago, she would be the only girl in the group. This may have changed since then, but I'm sure not by much. Sense of belonging and community is important, and it's not unreasonable to suspect that a male-dominated summer camp would not provide a girl with that sense of community. Especially at that age. A more ideal solution might be increasing the number of girls interested in computer science so that this simply is not a problem. Unfortunately, it's unrealistic to assume that will happen over night. In the mean time, camps such as this might decrease the social barriers to entry for girls interested in CS. That's a Good Thing.

level 13y ago
I absolutely agree with this. I talked with a major contributor to http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ and he helped me understand that it's not about keeping men back or fighting sexism with sexism, it's about providing opportunities where people thought they previously didn't exist. STEM and the computer industry are heavily dominated by men (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523172), and the role models to introduce women into these fields just aren't there (although it is getting better). Programs like this are there to show that an industry isn't specifically for only men or women, and allow girls to make the choice to code, even if they previously hadn't thought of it as an option.
computer 13y ago
I have experience with summer camps for Mathematics (as a participant) for kids from 10-18. I'm not sure how they manage to achieve it, but it was probably 55%/45% male/female. I think that half the camp elders being female helped a lot, as well as wise promotion and word of mouth after 20 successful years. I feel that the camps being mixed added a ton to the experience. I can't begin to describe all the benefits, but for me as a boy, the camps first showed me that both genders can be interested in nerdy stuff, and that such interests are actually fine and quite normal. However, if it would have been 95% boys, I think it would have been better to split them by gender. Especially among children it's hard to be the only girl in a group of only boys. Then, once the girl group starts to grow by intelligent promotion and word of mouth, perhaps you can merge the camps once the split is more favorable.

azakai 13y ago

I tried to donate to this, but 1. The popup to donate shows up on a page where the URL is not https. This looks wrong, but closer inspection shows that it is an iframe that is in fact properly secured. But had I not known how to find that out (right-click, show page info), I would not enter my credit card info on a non-https site. 2. My card was declined, the first time in my life that that has ever happened. I triple-checked the information I entered and it is valid. Could be my fault, but given I've never had a problem before, perhaps an issue with the site? Based on those two things, this project might be missing out on some amount of donations (at least mine, since I don't have another card to try). Hopefully that's fixable.

smtddr 13y ago
Personally, I think that's a web UI design flaw where the page loads non https but a credit-card form has a POST as https. Also, I'm kinda concerned that vice-versa could happen. I wish browsers had a feature to detect what appears to be a form asking for sensitive info and let me know if the POST will happen over https or not. Basically, stop me from proceeding anytime a form is about to submit containing a field of 16 digits with some kind of modal warning dialog.
bullfight 13y ago
On point 2 I went through the same thing. Your card was declined because these donations are being routed through the Travis Foundation's Stripe account which is now based in Germany. As an international org based in Germany your bank/cc flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent. I don't think Rails Girls/Travis can do much about this, you need to call your bank to get them to allow the transaction.
- azakai 13y ago
  Requiring people to call their bank is a much higher barrier than it should be, though? I buy stuff online all the time and things just work. I hope Rails Girls can use another payment processing solution.

Grue3 13y ago

Why would you want to expose children to the horror that is Ruby on Rails in the first place?