We want to increase the number of women in software development. | Hacker News Reader

We want to increase the number of women in software development.

hackstaracademy.com

23 pointsdavj40 comments

"Our Mission - Our mission is to teach people software development in order to help them pursue their passions."

Doesn't it stand to reason that if their passion was software development, they'd be doing it irregardless of their gender?

Perhaps regardless (or irrespective) of their gender, too. </pedantry>

I think we have gotten to the point where "irregardless" is acceptable, it's been used for 100 years and is in just about every dictionary.

It's as much a word as anything else in the dictionary. Whether a redundant double-negative is truly "acceptable" is debatable, but hey, that's the English language for you.

The word used is "passions", plural, which makes it clear to me that the passions are unspecified things outside of programming that can be made more useful and exciting with software. I think the rest of the website backs up this reading.

Even if we take your misunderstanding of what was written, I'm disappointed by what seems to be a "well, if <minority-representation group> actually wanted to be more represented, they'd just hurry up and fix the systemic problems that are keeping them outside the group themselves without us having to do anything" snark. That's not how barriers to entry work.

You're right, it doesn't matter what gender you are. The imbalance of the genders in engineering is pretty skewed and we want to improve that. We think a women exclusive fellowship is a great start.

Uhh... is this illegal? While including sex as a weight in the decision process is fine, I think creating a "women exclusive" scholarship may be tricky. See Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Also, the Civil Rights Act (Title VII) may come into play.

Last I looked, UC is a state funded institution. This is not.

So, no, it is not illegal and I don't see too many "women exclusive" scholarships being mentioned here.

Probably not. Consider IBM's women-only scholarship program:

The American Physical Society and IBM co-sponsor a research internship program for undergraduate women. The goal is to encourage women students to pursue graduate studies in science and engineering. -- http://www.aps.org/programs/women/scholarships/ibm/index.cfm

Yet i don't see any fellowships for males who want to be nurses. Nurse practitioner is higher paid profession than engineering in regards to median salary. It also rated the #4 occupation when using job security,salary etc as the metric. I bet if you search, no one considers this gender bias a problem.

If we can't have a thing, they can't have a thing either? Weak argument. So very weak.

The passions they're referencing aren't software development. You're right that if your passion is software you'd already be doing it.

There are lots of markets that are underserved due to the homogeneity of geek culture. I myself am male but also a sports fan and that market is woefully underserved. All the sports apps I've seen don't have the slightest bit of creativity and tend to be terribly constructed.

Adding more women with software development skills will open up new markets to be disrupted simply because those markets are not interesting/invisible to the current group of software professionals.

(Hi. Woman here.) Well, yes. Like anything, if it was a known, lifelong passion, then I’d/women would already be doing it. However, programming is something that sounds interesting, could be fun and I bet I’d be good at it but having been in tech for a few years, the barrier for entry seems pretty insurmountable. The dev teams I’ve worked with have been exclusively male (I’m in marketing) and the culture of shouting and condescension seems like more of a barrier to me than a lost desire to pursue my passions. That said…this seems like a first step in addressing the situation.

It sounds like you have only worked with arseholes. We need less arseholes in the industry, and more civil, caring, and talented engineers.

I've worked with very good engineers, of both sexes.

...the culture of shouting and condescension seems like more of a barrier...

You seem to be confusing a barrier (something that impedes your movement, regardless of your choices) from a preference (something that makes you more likely to make a certain choice).

I don't think there's a confusion. As far as I'm aware, women consistently express a preference against the aggressive and disrespectful communication style that's common to many software projects, meaning that this style functions as an effective barrier to women (and men who don't like overt conflict much either) joining these projects.

I don't think nitpicking the semantics adds much here.

Women disliking the communication style of software people is not a barrier. It's a preference. Women could join if they wanted to, they just don't want to.

It's not a semantic difference - the difference is whether women are prevented from performing some activity or whether they choose not to perform it.

Similarly, I don't like banking environments very much. There is no barrier preventing me from working at Citi, I just never applied for a job there.

Thanks Kris, these are the scenarios that should change. Would love to chat more about your interest/experience with what we're doing - you can reach me at d@hackstaracademy.com

There is no barriers to entry for programming. All the good tools are free, there's free hosting, there's free learning materials. You can get a full working product out the door without spending a dime.

Honestly, I think introductory courses are useful. This looks like a good program, and focused on getting you to the point where you can build something simple. At the risk of (gasp!) admitting ignorance, I think I'd probably find a program like that informative. Yes, you can always teach yourself, which is what I usually do, but social reinforcement is great if you can get it.

It's kind of ugly for established members of a profession to react badly when somebody tries to teach novices the basics of that profession.

People are objecting to sex discrimination, not teaching novices.

I've worked with the two fellows starting this program. I'll publicly vouch for their seriousness and competence in seeing this project through. Whatever your thoughts on these "bootcamp" style training programs that have been popping up around the country (see: Dev Bootcamp, Code Academy, Hungry Academy, Hacker School), they have a real potential to bridge the unfortunate chasm between the educated underemployed and the desperate and ever-growing need for software developers and perhaps eventually replace the broken system of CS education in this country.

If anybody can do it, David and Christian can. Best of luck guys!

Totally and completely agreed, David and Christian are both great programmers and great guys.

Thanks Doug. I am a former student and Christian helped teach the first cohort of Dev Bootcamp. It is an incredible program and inspiration to us. There are more and more options out there to help train people to become developers, it is a powerful movement and I think it's going to change the world.

I know some people taught by Christian recently who couldn't praise him highly enough. I'm told he is not only highly skilled but also personable and really knows how to get a concept across. I think this is a really great program and hope there are some courageous woman out there ready for this. It's hard work with little sleep in an intensive course, but so rewarding.

Great Idea. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with the online version of this. Many women simply couldn't travel to SF or NYC (Hacker School) for several weeks to get training. In a Mother-Father-Children household, it is still more feasible for the Father to be away for weeks rather than the Mom. Society is just used to that type of scenario more often than the other way around.

It is even more difficult for single moms (which I'm sure is a much larger number compared to single fathers in the US). Anyhow, my point is that for many girls, there are valid reasons why they can't follow their 'passions' or why they would need to follow them while keeping up with other responsibilities as well.

The advantage of having programs like these where they could have the input and support from mentors and a group of fellow students is certainly a big plus and I would love to see someone replicating the same environment online so that accessibility to these opportunities is not an issue.

Much to say… I recently got a chance to meet these two people and within that first meeting, I could tell they were on to something… most importantly; it was coming from the right place. I gotta speak on Christians teaching style, having met a lot of programmers and read many books; it’s a treat getting a chance to meet and learn from a person that has so many contexts from which to pull a clearly explained, simple to understand answer. But that doesn’t really do him justice in the sense that, it’s important to understand when you can say more and when you should hold off, and he’s got that. I’m currently taking classes from Christian and David (tonight in fact) and I can say that I look forward to getting the insights that you can only get when you talk to people who are intimately familiar with the environment around development and the coming and going technology and programing paradigms. They even brought a Google engineer the first night, come on! That's pretty COOL! For me, this is the most excellent way to get a chance to rev up my skill set without having to put my carrer aside for 18 months to several years to get it from a formal school. And on that subject, all the engenieers and CEOs that I’ve talked to say the same thing, education is awesome, but show me what you’ve built. From day one in our class, they said on day two we’re gonna start on our projects. That’s learning by doing… and if you’ve ever spent 30 hours figuring out that you missed setting a reference somewhere that coulda been spotted in 15 seconds by someone who was looking over your shoulder… then you can appreciate a place where your day consist of coding with peers rather than reading about chapter 23 by yourself! Let me build something that has meaning to me... and they're doing just that! David is awesome too! Very personable and a testament to how good of a teacher Christian is… ‘cuz he can get down with the code too! Gotta go! Got some work I gotta show up to class with. These people leave you feeling like you’re so lucky to have them as your new friends that you don’t want to disappoint them or yourself. I’m sending a friend to go and apply for their summer fellowship for women. I love to see anyone who just needed a push… finally get there! Much Luv Guys!

If women are given equal treatment, education, opportunities, etc. as they grow up from day 1, would that balance the ratio of female engineers with males?

Honestly, I don't think so. With all the freedom and opportunity in the world, the differences in brain chemistry between genders will tend to favor particular career paths.

Preemptive disclaimer: I don't think that people should be shoehorned into a particular career because of their gender, nor do I think that equality between genders in terms of employment and pay is unworthy of effort. Just don't be shocked if that ratio never hits 50/50 because women with the opportunities still don't want to be engineers.

Even assuming that your uncited brain chemistry claim is true, I'm sure you'd agree that the balance is a very long way from 50/50 right now, and that it would be great if it could be improved :)

Ok, i would like to see a more even ratio of men to women in software. However, making things that are "only for women" will likely increase the resentment between the sexes.

I do think we have a system problem in our education, but it's not that STEM favors men, it's that the REST of education heavily favors women. The recent college attendance numbers are a pretty good indication. STEM is just harder to discriminate, so more men are drawn to it.

Why would we resent this when it's already so easy for us to get into programming?

I'm really sure a fair few women will resent being given "unfair" advantages. I've definitely witnessed this in regards to Google giving some free conference passes to a number of women.

Maybe the education system just needs to interest females before they get the chance to realise it's "uncool".

The only dev team I've been in thus far has included a woman, in a workplace which I consider a meritocracy. I've yet to work in a team unsuited to women.

I don't think having a school for women necessarily gives an unfair advantage. I'm not even sure it's an 'advantage' at all in a male-dominated discipline, especially given the degree to which engineering is male-dominated.

You're right that girls don't think tech is cool. I've heard this anecdotally from high school teachers and friends running Girls in Tech programs. I'm not sure I know how to tackle that specifically.

One problem might be the phenomenon that occurs when you walk into a room full of people who look nothing like you. As a minority (I know I look Chinese, but I'm a Samoan-born Filipino), I feel this a little bit all the time. But when I walked into a local Women Who Code event to meet someone, it was downright alarming. After experiencing that, I can't blame women for not wanting to participate in tech at all.

Regarding your last statement, I want to point out that I've never worked with a woman who was a bad engineer, and seemingly, neither has anyone else. Conspicuously absent are the unremarkable, or even poorly performing female engineers, while their male counterparts are everywhere. One expects a more normal distribution, and I think this indicates some systemic problem, but it's not one I know how to solve without more data. Right now, I think the best we can do is address the symptom and add more women into the tech pool directly.

I applaud your commitment to open up the computer industry.

Its not about women or men, but about good engineers. The more the better.

I think it's good that they're trying to get young people into software development, but I don't think it's a problem that there is a gender imbalance. With that said, if there is a way to get a certain group involved, then more power to them.

thanks, we'd love to get more of everyone who's excited about it into software development. if you have any other feedback would love to hear your opinion d@hackstaracademy.com

What dates does the program run?

The program runs for June 4 - August 3

Simple. Incentivize existing programmers to get a sex change.

Why? It just sounds like they are looking for Hacker Babes.

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