Comment by gone35 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gone35 | Hacker News Reader

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[I]n 20 years of obsessive playing with computers, I have never met a woman who I thought was as good as I am at computer bullshit. I have asked other people who I consider very good at computer bullshit whether they had met any really skilled women, and they also said no.

You must live in a very sad, homogeneous world then. I feel sorry for you.

Oh and also, as a CS theorist with a second career in VLSI microprocessor design and close-to-the-metal computer architecture who also happens to be a woman, prima facie I am pretty sure I outclass you at "computer bullshit" a hundred times over. And so (I bet) would many other women colleagues I have met over the years.

Not that my word (or anything for that matter) would change your mind, of course...

>You must live in a very sad, homogeneous world then.

And he is lamenting that fact. How sad for you that you take it as a personal insult that this person's observations don't match your ideal.

Could you please reread what I wrote and say if you disagree with any of it?

I understand you post. (It made me laugh too.)

The evidence you have gathered via your own experience has led you to that conclusion. I believe you when you say you haven't met a woman better at computer bullshit than you. (Probably because you don't meet many women but that's beside the point).

Right, so the only hole in your argument is that in your life you surely would have at least read about, or heard of smart women, be they lawyers, doctors, academics, scientists, writers, etc. We don't need to actually meet those people, we only need to be aware they exist.

The numbers game thing may have nothing to do with ability, but other factors such as left-over historical gender roles still influencing young womens career choices. Or perhaps there may well be a natural "dislike" of programming, not because of lack of ability, but because.... it's programming. Not exactly the most social of disciplines. Men naturally like to lock themselves away in front of screens, more so than women. There's biological differences at work in defining taste in activities.

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