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How do you and the author see this at all as a gender issue? The author says that coding is making "because it is widely perceived to be done by men" and that t

How do you and the author see this at all as a gender issue? The author says that coding is making "because it is widely perceived to be done by men" and that there are "gendered, capitalist benefits of being a person who makes products." I am utterly baffled. Where does this even come from? How do you look at this issue and see even a whiff of anything related to gender?

philwelch 12y ago
"A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject".
zzzeek 12y ago
> How do you look at this issue and see even a whiff of anything related to gender? How about the article's explanation? It requires historical context (that is, can't be looked at in a vacuum). > Walk through a museum. Look around a city. Almost all the artifacts that we value as a society were made by or at the order of men. But behind every one is an invisible infrastructure of labor—primarily caregiving, in its various aspects—that is mostly performed by women. yes? or no?
- hueving 12y ago
  >yes? or no? No. Until I see some proof that these men were incompetent/useless until they had a caregiver, I think this is complete bogus to justify a role that wasn't really needed. If full-time caregiving was required, you would not encounter single people that could function in society and you would never meet a child with both parents employed.
  - blueMist 12y ago
    Agree with the single people aspect, but a child whose parents are both employed is being cared by someone else. And unless the parents are well-off, that someone else is either not paid or badly paid.
Rapzid 12y ago
Those statements just blew the whole article for me. Feels like an article that was supposed to be about identity and labels has an overt agenda/chip creeping in. Those quotes so far out of left field.. They feel really out of place.
robgibbons 12y ago
I agree profusely. This article was just beginning to get interesting when the author started dropping these gender bombs. I see absolutely no reason to give quarter to such ideas.
deleted 12y ago
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csirac2 12y ago
That was my reaction too, but given all the reading of late I've been trying to do in order to understand WTF GamerGate is, I am reminded to start out by saying that we should be careful not to come across as questioning the validity of this author's experiences at all. I've read a few "GG" pieces written by men saying something along the lines of, "hey this sucks, but it's really not that bad WTF". Saying things that I could've written. For example, I get annoyed at the ALL OPEN SOURCE DEVS ARE ARSEHATS characterizations because I happen to have been involved in a few over the years which honestly haven't been this way. There, I tried to recruit (as did fellow developers) and offer commit access regardless of gender and (in at least one case I'm aware of) non-conventional gender identity. And we weren't code-snobs: this includes doc-only and other community contributors. But this was a "boring" project mostly maintained by $dayjob people, so perhaps all the obnoxious jerks found other havens. Additionally, as a white english-speaking male, perhaps I'm poorly placed to make this assessment and perhaps there were injustices that I just couldn't see as such. Then there's the reactions to these (insensitive? ignorant?) pieces. The main take-home point I've learnt reading @freebsdgirl is: just because a few of us rich white english-speaking males have had a good old time and barely any insurmountable problems in our particular corners of the internet... is great, but completely irrelevant to the fact that a lot of women are disproportionately having a bad time. Back to the article, I still feel compelled though to share just how odd it felt reading that making was a male thing. By the time I was 5, my parents' farm had failed - the next 10 years were a struggle for them, but for me it was a time that cemented my curiosity and creativity by having to improvise everything. I am forced to rethink this: if I was born a girl, what else could I have done with my time? Didn't my own father constantly find ways to express his view that real men didn't sit around all day on computers? Is it just a fluke that my younger brothers' girlfriends could weld better than me? And when we were 14, being shown by a girl I knew how the primer worked (she was fixing a routine blockage) on a quirky, ancient diesel stationery engine? Is being a rich white male warping my perspective that much? There were terrible gender imbalances at the time. Some too depressing to write about. But being able to make, modify and repair stuff was a universal skill that I hadn't - until now - considered genderized. My daughter loves helping me take apart and repair things, just as I did when I was her age. But now odd thoughts occur: were the girls I knew growing up so equipped with "maker" skills because we lived in a poorer area? Or was it the rural living? Perhaps both? If this is the case, does that mean my daughter will have fewer opportunities to pursue these skills without the same pressures I grew up with?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

philwelch 12y ago

"A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject".

zzzeek 12y ago

> How do you look at this issue and see even a whiff of anything related to gender? How about the article's explanation? It requires historical context (that is, can't be looked at in a vacuum). > Walk through a museum. Look around a city. Almost all the artifacts that we value as a society were made by or at the order of men. But behind every one is an invisible infrastructure of labor—primarily caregiving, in its various aspects—that is mostly performed by women. yes? or no?

hueving 12y ago
>yes? or no? No. Until I see some proof that these men were incompetent/useless until they had a caregiver, I think this is complete bogus to justify a role that wasn't really needed. If full-time caregiving was required, you would not encounter single people that could function in society and you would never meet a child with both parents employed.
- blueMist 12y ago
  Agree with the single people aspect, but a child whose parents are both employed is being cared by someone else. And unless the parents are well-off, that someone else is either not paid or badly paid.

Rapzid 12y ago

Those statements just blew the whole article for me. Feels like an article that was supposed to be about identity and labels has an overt agenda/chip creeping in. Those quotes so far out of left field.. They feel really out of place.

robgibbons 12y ago

I agree profusely. This article was just beginning to get interesting when the author started dropping these gender bombs. I see absolutely no reason to give quarter to such ideas.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

csirac2 12y ago

That was my reaction too, but given all the reading of late I've been trying to do in order to understand WTF GamerGate is, I am reminded to start out by saying that we should be careful not to come across as questioning the validity of this author's experiences at all. I've read a few "GG" pieces written by men saying something along the lines of, "hey this sucks, but it's really not that bad WTF". Saying things that I could've written. For example, I get annoyed at the ALL OPEN SOURCE DEVS ARE ARSEHATS characterizations because I happen to have been involved in a few over the years which honestly haven't been this way. There, I tried to recruit (as did fellow developers) and offer commit access regardless of gender and (in at least one case I'm aware of) non-conventional gender identity. And we weren't code-snobs: this includes doc-only and other community contributors. But this was a "boring" project mostly maintained by $dayjob people, so perhaps all the obnoxious jerks found other havens. Additionally, as a white english-speaking male, perhaps I'm poorly placed to make this assessment and perhaps there were injustices that I just couldn't see as such. Then there's the reactions to these (insensitive? ignorant?) pieces. The main take-home point I've learnt reading @freebsdgirl is: just because a few of us rich white english-speaking males have had a good old time and barely any insurmountable problems in our particular corners of the internet... is great, but completely irrelevant to the fact that a lot of women are disproportionately having a bad time. Back to the article, I still feel compelled though to share just how odd it felt reading that making was a male thing. By the time I was 5, my parents' farm had failed - the next 10 years were a struggle for them, but for me it was a time that cemented my curiosity and creativity by having to improvise everything. I am forced to rethink this: if I was born a girl, what else could I have done with my time? Didn't my own father constantly find ways to express his view that real men didn't sit around all day on computers? Is it just a fluke that my younger brothers' girlfriends could weld better than me? And when we were 14, being shown by a girl I knew how the primer worked (she was fixing a routine blockage) on a quirky, ancient diesel stationery engine? Is being a rich white male warping my perspective that much? There were terrible gender imbalances at the time. Some too depressing to write about. But being able to make, modify and repair stuff was a universal skill that I hadn't - until now - considered genderized. My daughter loves helping me take apart and repair things, just as I did when I was her age. But now odd thoughts occur: were the girls I knew growing up so equipped with "maker" skills because we lived in a poorer area? Or was it the rural living? Perhaps both? If this is the case, does that mean my daughter will have fewer opportunities to pursue these skills without the same pressures I grew up with?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]