Rails Girls

kiwiluv.com

10 points·spicerunner··6 comments

Nice initiative to get more girls (and women) involved in web development.

"There aren’t enough women in software development so I hope this kind of thing spreads beyond Helsinki!"

I'm thinking that if you want to attract women, you should refer to them as "women", not "girls."

If you attract girls to the field then eventually you'll have women in the field. Just look at me: I was attracted to the field as a boy. Now, I am a man.

"Just look at me: I was attracted to the field as a boy. Now, I am a man."

But were you attracted to the field because it was presented as an activity for boys?

Is whether or not I was as pertinent as whether or not I might have been - because I may have been.

You might also ask (as the proper counterpart to your advocacy for using "women") whether I might have been had it been presented as an activity for men. Probably not, because I didn't identify as a man when I was a boy.

All I'm saying is that there's no reason to be hypersensitive about using the word "girls" if your target audience actually includes them. Is there a reason to believe that they were using the word "girls" but excessively trying to appeal to women? I took the unicorn and the kitty as a dead giveaway, myself.

I do remember a pretty good computing column in Boys Life magazine, actually.

True...I must be getting old.

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