The reality is your gender has nothing to do with your ability to write software. Software is the greatest of equalizers.
There is definitely a subset of society that feels it necessary to thrust gender into discussions where they have no place - such as this article.
Are we supposed to be more impressed because it was a female? Why?
People see person and man as synonyms. One man dev team and one person dev team would illicit the same response but one woman dev team forces people to comment on the title.
Sure! I just find it interesting that these discussions only happen when "woman" is in the title, and never when "man" is in the title.
>There is definitely a certain subset of society that feels it necessary to thrust gender into discussions where they have no place - such as this article.
As long as you feel the same way whenever you see "one man dev team" or similar, I think that can be a good discussion.
I think the difference often is the intention of the writer. We get these types of headlines when people want to really promote how cool it is a female is capable of doing something - and we're all supposed to be amazed. That's pretty sexist if you think about it... of course a female is capable of writing high quality software! We should be amazed at what this person achieved because it is impressive on it's own merit - not because of the person's gender.
However, nobody is reading a headline like "one man dev team" and thinking "you go dude!".
It's a two-way double-standard that we should work on ending.
I think you're reading way too much into it.
Maybe they're just a women, and they did a turn on the phrase "one man team" to acknowledge that they're not a man?
I think that was my original point - who cares?
It adds nothing of value to their accomplishments, nor the article.
If anything, it detracts from the accomplishment. "Look how cute it is that the females are trying to code, applaud them!" - is the sentiment that comes out of it. It's the same affect as these all-female movie casts that then get promoted as "look how great it is that the cast is all female" instead of "look how great this movie is".
In general, we should just say person. Allow the accomplishments to carry themselves. If they are good, people will respond.