>Girls Who Code
Sexism is good as long as victims are men.
Sexism is good as long as victims are men.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13614827 and marked it off-topic.
I do occasional technical talks or workshops for free and some organisers have asked to make them 'girls only'. I've always declined and made it clear that everyone will be welcome. I don't see any malice in people who want to do gender-specific events, but I do not agree that excluding people is the way to go.
I say good luck to you if you are doing 'girls only' events. You are welcome to come to mine too, even though as a man I may not be welcome at yours.
[0]http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sexism
[1]http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/discrimin...
Look, you sound like a nice guy, so I don't mean this as a personal attack, but your take on this is a classic example of how good people can fall into the trap of their own privilege. You don't do events where men/boys are not allowed to attend (e.g. girls who code) and that sounds noble and ideal. However, it somewhat ignores the fact that the reason these events have come into existence is that our profession has for decades suffered from massive amounts of systemic discrimination (sexism in particular). Just because it's not encoded in a written set of rules, doesn't mean it hasn't always been present. For men/boys, there are infinitely more events to attend where the gender balance will always be swung widely in their favor.
When a woman developer joins/joined an all-male development team, do you think they have the luxury of being able to say "No, I won't do that"? Sure, there's no rule saying the team should be only male, but that's the "systemic" part. This is the "privilege" I'm referring to. You can say "no", because there are plenty of other talks and workshops for you to take part in. There is little to no negative impact on you from refusing those invites. What if women-only workshops were the predominant event out there?
I don't think events like Girls Who Code are the final solution. I agree with you that, in the end, an industry and events open to everyone is the solution. However, we've reached such a massive imbalance by operating via the status quo that I think things like Girls Who Code, despite being "discriminatory" by a textbook definition, have a net positive effect, rather than the opposite. I'll happily volunteer my time to teach more girls to again when I have the chance. I don't think the lip-service of saying our industry and events are open to both men and women will tip the scales towards equality.
No, I would not refuse, mostly because this does not match my experience (though I accept it happens) and also because I just don't check for this kind of thing beforehand. Further complicating matters is how people self-describe their race or gender. Some prefer to be genderless, some cultures use different definitions for race than Americans do (e.g. "white" in Latin America and "Hispanic" in USA has significant overlap or none at all, depending on your culture. Even more confusing, upper-class people with what we call "black" skin were sometimes referred to as "whites" when I lived in Brazil, and this still amuses me). Bottom line is I don't focus on this much and I'm happy to accept whatever people want to describe themselves as. I don't find it that interesting or important.
Back to the original topic, I think it would be perfectly fine to promote an event open to all, and to do so exclusively to women if that's who you want to target as promoter. Just don't tell any men to leave if they show up and I'm presenting, or I'm walking right out the door with them. I draw a distinction between promoting an event and access control at the event.
And no offense taken, your points are well made and I think we just have a difference of opinion.
Similarly, there would be a difference between an all-male conference to which no women were invited and an all-male conference to which no women submitted.
To state the obvious, exclusion is the differentiator, and it is not counterintuitive to be simultaneously in favor of promoting women while also being against the exclusion of non-women.
My wife founded local chapters of a women-focused Girl Develop It organization, so I dearly understand that the issue can be divisive, but I personally find it hard to judge someone on whether they choose to be exclusive or inclusive, and not every event needs to conform to one "right" moral standard against which all others will be deemed deficient.
Taking a principled stand against them means you don't support them and think they detract rather than contribute. If that's honestly your stance, I guess we just disagree on that. I will happily send my daughter to one of these events when she is old enough, but I hope they aren't necessary anymore by that time.
And I guess what I failed to express that it doesn't have to be a binary 'good' or 'bad'. I personally don't judge inclusivity or exclusivity as either good or bad, nor do I see why anyone should, beyond determining what it means to them. If Boy Scouts of America want to exclude certain demographics, fine -- it's their club after all, but I don't want to participate in that, so I won't. Similarly, if Girls Who Code want to exclude certain demographics, that is also fine with me, and I still don't want to participate.
I'm not making a value judgement on whether or not they're good or bad, but am instead deciding whether or not I personally want to be party to exclusion. For me, usually, the answer to that question is 'No'.
So can I, which is why I make no value judgements on those people who prefer exclusiveness to inclusiveness. That said, I'd much prefer to teach my (also not hypothetical daughter) the value of inclusivity, and as such, where it makes sense, I prefer to eschew those groups who practice exclusivity.
And how do you do it without saying to your daughter that it's because she's weaker than your son and needs help? How do you explain to your son that he's so privileged that he needs handicaps to avoid hurting others? (Especially if he's not actually some alpha-male stereotype who embodies that.)
I see so much potential for accidentally hurting people with this path that I'd rather jump through a bunch of hurdles to make all events inclusive rather than reverse the original discrimination.
As I said earlier, I don't think gender-segregated events should exist in a balanced world, but I don't have a problem with them when there is a great imbalance and they have the potential to tilt that balance back towards equality (by existing temporarily). The whole idea of them is to create an environment welcoming to girls and get them interested in coding. I don't particularly care whether they do this by promoting only to one gender or explicitly allowing only one gender; that's logistics. I care that if we can provide more girls and women with an accessible pathway into software, that's a good thing, because once CS classes are and industry are more gender-balanced, we won't need these types of camps.
Calling it "weakness" to gravitate towards something that other members of your gender are doing is misplaced, in my opinion. My computer engineering classes were roughly 95% male and I'm not so naive to think that those were exactly welcoming enviornments for women.
To deny these pathways is to claim that the status quo is fine and that this inequality is either meant to be or will somehow solve itself. I don't believe either of those things.
I don't really understand what "handicaps" the existence of an all-girl coding camp represents to men or boys. There are a plethora of options for us/them. Who is getting really, genuinely hurt by this, in your opinion?
Heh. "Hypothetical child or children of unspecified gender".
> Calling it "weakness" to gravitate towards something that other members of your gender are doing is misplaced
There's a difference between doing something and discovering that most of the people doing it are your gender, and doing something that a higher-power (the event organizers) made gender-segregated.
And I don't mean there's a weakness in the person choosing the activity, I mean there's an apparent one you the parent are compensating for. Like if the event in question was basketball camps and you put your child in "Basketball for Short & Slow People". All the female-only events have a real taint of keeping out the strong performers so the weak can win too. imho it changes things from a primarily female-centric event which happens to cover programming to a people-centric event which forbids the "obviously" superior boys. What better way to make people feel second-class?
> I'm not so naive to think that those were exactly welcoming enviornments for women.
Agreed. But that seems like the problem to solve, by making sure that the events we organize aren't hostile to anyone. But anyone is far wider than women, and the offenders are far more diverse than men.
> I don't really understand what "handicaps" the existence of an all-girl coding camp represents to men or boys.
Not that there is a handicap, but that your son would feel like he's being given one so that he's on equal footing - just because he's male.
> Who is getting really, genuinely hurt by this, in your opinion?
Everyone. Both children, and all of society.
Your daughter would feel less sense of accomplishment, your son would feel that his success is less important to you than hers or that he's already good so why strive. Children of either gender who don't learn in the stereotypical way the group leaders think they should and are thus less-served by the program. Trans kids would suffer from more physical-gender stereotyping and all these gender-specific camps would just prolong gender segregation for everyone.
It's not an either-or question though. I don't think you should ignore traditional sexism, which I agree is huge pretty much everywhere including many classrooms. But I think we should do more-inclusive things, not less, to combat it. Things that help everyone, not that exclude.
There's a real reason to have mentors who look like you, in whatever ways you see yourself, but not I think, to be separated from those who are different.
> Like if the event in question was basketball camps and you put your child in "Basketball for Short & Slow People". All the female-only events have a real taint of keeping out the strong performers so the weak can win too.
An all-girl introductory coding camp is like a baksetball camp for "short & slow" players? Girls are weak when it comes to software and boys are strong?
Learning to code is not a competitive sport. I think it's a really ugly comparison, to be honest. It's all-girl to encourage female participation and has absolutely nothing to do with ability. Any presumptions of ability being brought into the discussion is being injected by your own viewpoints.
That's precisely what you are implying by supporting coding camps "for girls"!
Any time you create an event restricted to some group unrelated to skill level, it makes it sound like something inherent to the group makes their abilities different.
Okay:
Python for beginners
Python for intermediate users
Python for data scientists
Not okay:
Python for girls
Python for Jewish people
Python for Black people
Python for Gay people
Python for White people
Not at all. That is completely you bringing your prejudices into the equation.
Do gyms have womens-only sections because women are not as good as men at going to the gym?! No, it's about comfort and an alternative to a male-dominated environment.
If girls exposed to coding through camps end up enjoying it and going on to CS in school, balancing out the classrooms (which will naturally lead to more balance without the needs for exclusionary events), that's not a bad thing IMHO and there is no harm done. This is just something to try and kickstart momentum away from the status quo of the huge imbalance there is.
Says the person advocating for special women's-only classes, implying they are not capable of participating in mixed gender environments.
>that's not a bad thing IMHO and there is no harm done.
Except to the kids that were refused from entering the class due to their gender. They were deprived of whatever the teacher and their would-be peers had to offer.
"Infringes on your ability" never was the question.
There always were many clubs open to women - only a few here and there were men-only. In fact, by the time we got rid of men's only clubs they were rarely very influential so you can't even really argue that they were special. But, obviously I think, we aren't getting rid of men's only clubs simply to give women the choice of 50 clubs instead of 45, but because we feel it's unfair for people to be excluded.
> Learning to code is not a competitive sport.
Right, so setup an event that is not and it'll be appropriate for all learners, of either gender. This is the sort I prefer to attend, fwiw.
But if you make it competitive (offering prizes, recognition, or mentors for instance) don't be surprised if people treat it that way.
> Any presumptions of ability being brought into the discussion is being injected by your own viewpoints.
Why are there paralympics, if not to give the paralympians a chance against the uninjured?
> I think it's a really ugly comparison, to be honest.
How it makes you feel is seldom related to the truth.
Also, not that your comfort would matter either way, I think you're hearing me say that there's an actual skill difference, which I am not, and I do not see one amongst my work peers. I'm talking about the message inherent in segregated events.
> It's all-girl to encourage female participation and has absolutely nothing to do with ability.
How does making an event "no males" encouraging? That says a lot of things, but "You're just as good" is not one of them. How about just making the event about things that the girls in question care about?
And, even if it had only positive connotations, why is it fine to have all-girls events but not all-boys events?
The massive difference is being explicitly prevented from joining based on sex, which makes your privilege rant pointless.
There are no explicitly sexist rules encoded in software professions, so why are those professions predominantly occupied by men? Please don't tell me this is because you believe that men are superior at this kind of work.
Same tired old crap. The profession is predominantly occupied by men because that's the ratio of males/females in graduating classes. You can have all of the male-hating programming clubs you want, but trying to solve some perceived systematic discrimination of an entire profession that reflects the student supply is ignorant sexism.
I applaud anyone who has the integrity to stand up against discriminatory groups like this, particularly when the mainstream discrimination is supported by a lot of people such as yourself.
Comments like these make me very disappointed. How can you possibly be opposed to candidates from half of the Earth's population being involved in a typically male-dominated space?
Btw I TA at girl develop it classes and they're the best experiences I've ever had. Also the classes are open to all people.
I realize the knee-jerk reaction is about explicit focusing, but do you not think it's a good idea to cater to different, typically underserved demographics?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/all-lives-matter-bl...
A few years ago I lived on the west coast, organized a regular software meet-up, and did some volunteer time at a similarly named group (though not Girls Who Code). I volunteered as a mentor once or twice a month for about half a year, not because it was a place to teach women or children how to use Python but because it was a place that welcomed all marginalized groups: poor children, the elderly, homosexual, and of course woment and girls.
At the start of summer about 3 or 4 years ago I was approached by one of the organizers and asked to make that night my last one. I asked if it was about the quality of instruction or complaints and they explained that the organizers felt the group would be better if the mentor roles were female. Simple as that: your gender mattered if you wanted to be in a teaching role, but I was welcome to donate to the cause through donations. I left and didn't return.
A couple of years later I'd relocated to the east coast and signed up with a bunch of co-workers to volunteer at weekend programming-camp for children. By pure chance we'd assembled a equal mix of male/female and also had representatives from 5/7 continents. A couple of days before the event one of our iOS developers had to drop out so we were a 5/4 split of male to female volunteers. When we arrived at the event we were instructed that they had a requirement that the mentors be at most 50% male and so one of us would have to take a seat. I understand that they think it's important that young people see men and women are "at worst" equally talented, but I can't help but feel like we were accused of being predators that needed a female chaperone. I wonder what their reaction would have been knowing one of the women with us was transgendered…
I left and also stopped helping organize the "parent groups" (a programming language meet-up whos name would make you think it's for women but in practice was more inclusive). The company I work at is still a sponsor of that group and I have no intention to complain about even though I think the tactics of their organizers are questionable.
I realize this is all one sided and sounds like what a bigot is likely to say. I'm refusing to name organizations because I think ultimately the goal of sharing that joy I found as a young person with my first computer is a good one. My issue is with the organizers of these two particular groups who are—in my opinion—attempting to do the right thing the wrong way.