I personally am not a believer in excluding, to argue for including. It seems counter productive.
"Women are welcome at our events, and we have had a few women attend each workshop. The name was designed to be a specific invitation to men, but we don't exclude women. (That being said, I personally support the idea of separate women's groups and men's groups in general, so I encourage someone to start "Women Learning Code" if they are so inclined."
I'd just like to point out, without opinion one way or the other, that I believe the above paragraph would cause major outrage and claims of sexism and separatism, along with "this is why there are so few women in software".
Taking a minority empowerment effort and turning the tables around will obviously emulate a majority empowerment effort which is matter of fact an empowerment of prejudice.
If a minority group is not biased, then they have failed and will not have an effect in the status quo.
It's ok to discriminate when you're trying to target/encourage a specific minority (i.e. women in software), but it's not ok when you're targetting a majority, because it looks like you're trying to encourage the majority while discouraging the minority
Whether or not people say this out loud, or think it consciously is a different question.
"Ladies Learning Code" is discriminatory towards men, but it's less of an issue because it is in the furtherance of encouraging a minority (women) into the field. On the other hand, "Men Learning Code" seemingly discourages women, who are already in the minority.
The point to organiations like this isn't to eliminate "discrimination" in the abstract. It's to eliminate the inequality of opportunity. There is a very large practical and moral difference between being excluded from a single meeting of techincal people and being excluded from (or have limited access to) an entire career path. Spending a few "discrimination" points on the former to reduce the cases of the latter seems like a good idea to me.
(Yes, upvotes say this too, but now that votes are not public, I wanted there to be a visible commendation. These sorts of things set the tone of the thread.)
But when members of one class are systematically excluded from some role in society, exclusionary events are a problem if they contribute to that system. A workshop for “Men Learning Code” is a bad idea... and so is a workshop for “Women Learning To Teach Preschool”.
In all seriousness though, LLC is doing some great stuff, and I'm glad to see it getting some recognition here.
But when you have the present situation — where women are still a minority — it's hard to start that positive feedback loop. Women don't see other women in tech, so they're less likely to see it as a potential career path, and their numbers stagnate.
So the idea behind an event like this is to help break the perception that "women don't do tech." If you have a concentrated event with lots of women programmers, women are more likely to show up just because they see at as an event they are welcomed at.
Having an all-womens' programming event also helps alleviate a lot of the pressures that prevent women from showing up at coed events. Ask a female programmer you know about how it felt showing up at their university's computer club, or a hackathon, when they were still relatively inexperienced: they'll probably attest to feeling as if they needed to "prove" their geek credentials, or they'll talk about being afraid of looking like some incompetent girl (as opposed to simply incompetent). All-female tech events help women build up confidence so that they feel "equipped" when/if they choose to tackle the larger tech community.
> If you're a woman with a family, it's probably
> preferable to carve out a Saturday morning, let your
> partner (hopefully, if you have one) take care of the
> kids and come home (not sloshed) to your family than
> it is to head down to the bar after work to have a
> couple of pints. It's just a lot more feasible.
PS: People are lumping in 'nerdy' activity's when think it's a little more general than that. You can make attending a gun show a lot more inviting to women based on the same basic ideas.
Have you ever gone to events where you're the odd one out? Its not a comfortable experience, and even if you force yourself to keep going back, it takes an emotional toll. Think of events like these as a harbor for them to recharge at.
I'd also note that the group isn't exclusionary. They do allow men. They just cater to women. As much as I'd like these types of group to be unnecessary, I'd still say their existence is valid.
Yes. At the last two companies I've worked at, I've been the only non-Indian. I also live in India more than half the time (my current company is based there). When I'm in the US, I practice FMA, and I'm often the only non-Filipino in the room. I plan to travel to Cebu city soon to kick up my training, and I'll likely be the only white guy in my gym. At a yoga class, I'm often the only man.
Does this make me the "odd one out"? I could choose to view things that way, but I don't. At work I might be the only white guy, but we are all there to build a great product. At FMA, we are all there to learn how to kick ass. At yoga, we are all there to become stronger and more flexible.
If you attend tech events and focus on the differences between yourself and everyone else, you'll feel left out. And you'll have no one to blame but yourself.
I had an Asian friend tell me he doesn't like travelling in the southern states (particularly small towns) because people stare at him. He views this as racist behavior.
I told him that they stare at me too. I'm a middle-aged white guy, but I'm obviously not from the south either. He views it as being a race issue where I view it as being an outsider issue. Bothers him, doesn't bother me.
Same can be said of women who feel they are being excluded. I've worked with groups of women and often one will feel the environment is "unfriendly" while the other women say it's one of the most inclusive environments they've encountered.
What's the saying? "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so"
In spite of that, I'm not the odd man out. Instead of thinking "omfg, I don't have slanty eyes like these guys what'll I do", I'm thinking "I'm a bit taller than most of these guys, how can I use this to my advantage?"
[1] FMA looks distinctly different from Chinese/Japanese/Korean arts. To distinguish the genetically modified supersoldiers in The Bourne Identity from regular people, the director had them all learn a bit of FMA.
I could hypothesize on why you don't feel uncomfortable in the other situations you described, but really it's your own personal experience, and there's no reason to assume your feelings would generalize to everyone in that experience. I see the analogy you're trying to make, but I do not think it applies to women in technology, because there are a lot of other factors (stereotypes of computer scientists, the "brogramming" culture, the fact that you are going to classes in the US [I assume] not in the Phillipines, meaning you are still part of the dominant majority, etc).
Because it's dominating the given market. I don't see anything on their website specifically banning men, though. They probably just cater to women.
The main problem with the way you're thinking is you're ignoring the inequality and acting like a women-specific programming event is exactly the same as a men-specific event.
I'd like to see your evidence that women-specific events only serve to further divide groups. The participants I've talked to see it as an opportunity to learn new skills in a safe environment. Skills that they then go out and apply at regular companies. It's not like they then go on to work at women-only companies and then found women-only startups themselves, after all.
And women-specific events reinforce a divided image by presenting the events as specific to a group. It highlights a division between groups, and not based on a functional difference relevant to the field. What's different from a women-specific coding meetup and a meetup open to all? I can see sexual harassment / feeling out of place as something that may happen. And that sucks. But retreating to exclusive events (in name and branding at least) is not the solution.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion that somebody else's solution to a problem you don't have is wrong. But unless you're planning on doing something better, I'm not sure why you think your opinion is relevant. As with any open-source project, "patches welcome" is the order of the day.
The argument for excluding a dominant group would be that people in a non-dominant group may have a different perspective that might otherwise be drowned out. Trying to ensure that one has a strong majority locally in an industry-wide minority can provide a space for a different kind of social interaction. Heck if other coding workshops occur without many (if any) women, then very often times you can get the guy-interactions going anyway.
I think the same does apply to ethnic groups. And it's not a matter of systematic exclusion so much as its an issue. The issue is social and cultural space.