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I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women.

I'll outline this for you as clearly as possible.

Fact: a small, but significant, group of engineers in our field are sexist. They post GIFs that make women uncomfortable, call women "conference hos," and do otherwise lewd or inappropriate things.

Fact: as a result, women are uncomfortable working as software engineers. We know this because many blog posts state this discomfort explicitly. Your niece, unfortunately, may experience this if she decides to work as a software engineer.

Fact: we see similar grants for college attendance; these grants attempt to fight various socioeconomic factors ("old boys networks," among other things) that may prevent underrepresented groups from attending prestigious colleges.

Would you feel comfortable offering such a sexist grant to men only?

Obviously not. Why? Because, as the above facts illustrate, this grant attempts to address the sexism women face in our industry.

The Hacker School team can't drive around and hit every sexist idiot with a bit of reality, but they can try to provide an antidote to this sexism by (a) alleviating financial concerns for aspiring women engineers, and (b) providing a guaranteed non-sexist zone for them to practice their craft.

I can see how one might argue that this grant selects on behalf of gender, thus giving it an "affirmative action" flavor. That person, however, might want to present an argument slightly more nuanced than "THIS GRANT IS SEXIST ZOMGGGGGG," like you've done. You may want to try again.

(Also, a fact for those finding this via Twitter: Jerry does not represent the entirety of HN. (I'm waiting for Danilo Campos to join in, he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech.))

(Also also, while I believe with all of my being that you're wrong about this, I didn't downvote you, because your comment fosters some good discussion (in a roundabout, totally unintentional way).)

Whoa.

There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.

That I do not agree with any form of sexism makes me egalitarian, not misogynistic. You are way out of line, bub.

And while I do not know Danilo Campos or whether he/she is eager to grasp the role you assign, the notion there is some person whose role it is to police the discussions at Hacker News to whack people with sticks that disagree with him is well, downright creepy.

Not a way to run a discussion forum if one is interested in dialogue, and conversation.

There is a huge gap between my disagreeing with clearly sexist based policies and saying that sexism, even so called benevolent sexism is a bad thing, and your claiming I am misogynistic or that my point of view is insane, or even idiotic.

That's a very uncharitable reading of my comment. I made no statement about you aside from the lack of nuance in your argument (the whole zomg part). I think you took issue with this:

he usually whacks people with a sanity stick when it comes to misogyny in tech

which was simply a comment on how Danilo provides people with a reality check re: the prevalence of misogyny in tech.

I raised that point b/c people on Twitter were characterizing your remarks as representative of HN as a whole, when in practice I've found that we debate this issue carefully (again, as opposed to your blanket statement calling them sexist).

I went out of my way to avoid characterizing you as misogynistic. I apologize if my comment may have implied you're misogynistic (I don't know you, though, so why would I throw that claim around?) and would appreciate it if you instead responded to my actual claims (HSchool's scholarship is an attempt to combat the presence of sexism in our industry).

I raised that point b/c people on Twitter were characterizing your remarks as representative of HN as a whole, when in practice I've found that we debate this issue carefully (again, as opposed to your blanket statement calling them sexist).

I suggest you address twitter issues on twitter. HN issues on HN. I don't see how replying on HN to me with a shoutout to twitter, helps any conversation on twitter.

And any conversation on twitter that represents HN as monolithic in thought, or unable to debate issues thoroughly is prima facie not-serious, (that is, until you tell me of some person you believe whose self-assigned role it is to go around enforcing thought at HN with a whack and a stick.)

I can't begin to tell you how creeped out I am that there are twitter stalkers commenting about this article or my response on twitter, drawing conclusions, saying who knows what based on zero knowledge and yet afraid to discuss the issues here.

Doesn't say much for Internet Discourse 2013.

"Not a way to run a discussion forum if one is interested in dialogue, and conversation."

and yet you bragged about flagging the submission...

> It is within your rights to offer this grant. But I see no reason why your sexist bullshit should be advertised without complaint at Hacker News.

Apparently you think this is (i) sexist but (ii) within their right to do. That's unusual… even if you believe this, why would you bring it up?

> Do you feel comfortable about traditional "old boys networks", the existence of such were one valid reason that women's groups protested men's only clubs, men's only dining rooms, etc.?

This is so over the top—I don't know what to say. My understanding is it's still mostly men who attend Hacker School.

It's like a group of men saying 'fuck, we turned into an old boys network. let's give out grants to gifted women so they can join us'. And here you—a man—are protesting outside.

> They why do you perpetuate sexism within the industry?

Is sexism against guys a problem in the industry now?

Or do you think this will increase sexism against women too? If so, you should have argued why that's the case (or at least mentioned that that's what you mean).

> I have a similar aged nephew and a niece that would benefit from Hacker School, but you will only enable one of these people to attend.

I'd love to attend but I find it too expensive. I'm not complaining about this grant though. I think it's great! I absolutely hate that there are few women in the IT industry in the Western world.

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addendum

> Either your students need financial aid or they don't.

I think this misses a point. Hacker School is throwing opportunities at people. That's awesome because people need opportunities to succeed in life. However, Hacker School does not have an obligation to give opportunities to everyone—that's just not possible. What they are doing with these grants, however, is identifying a group that has trouble succeeding in the IT industry in the Western world (most female programmers I know are Chinese) and throwing extra opportunities at this group. That's awesome because if this group is underperforming then the most obvious way to fix that is to throw extra opportunities at them!

In fact, there's an argument that the very reason they're underperforming as a group in the first place is because they have trouble identifying opportunities in the first place. E.g. because they're told girls don't have the right kind of brain for IT, because they feel intimidated by the men IT, etcetera. All the more it makes sense to give extra grants for women!

"Apparently you think this is (i) sexist but (ii) within their right to do. That's unusual… even if you believe this, why would you bring it up?"

Basically, I think "we" have a right to freedom of association. And so many distasteful behaviors, like sexism, are legal, but should not be tolerated nor encouraged.

Hacker School may be within their legal rights to offer discriminatory grants. The Boy Scouts are apparently allowed to discriminate against gays. I dislike these policies of both organizations and will protest both even as I generally wish the organizations themselves well and acknowledge the good they try to do.

Is sexism against guys a problem in the industry now?

Sexism is sexism. Don't rationalize it. Don't tolerate it. Don't encourage it.

I'd love to attend but I find it too expensive. I'm not complaining about this grant though. I think it's great! I absolutely hate that there are few women in the IT industry in the Western world.

Kenehora. You are zazen. Everyone should be you. You sound like a true bootstrapper, a self-made man that needs no help from others.

Corollary, not everyone is you, wants to be you, or thinks you're all that. But thank you anyway.

> Kenehora. You are zazen. Everyone should be you. You sound like a true bootstrapper, a self-made man that needs no help from others.

Actually, that doesn't sound like me at all! I have benefited from need-based grants and a cheap education system. And even despite these great conditions I almost screwed up my education several times. It took some time for me to get my act together!

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise you to rethink your philosophies.

We can agree that it would be good to increase gender diversity in the industry. But you are making a leap without enough evidence to say that the reason it exists is because of "our culture's discrimination against women who program."

It is an assumption I've made because of a personal belief and a fact: I believe that women are just as qualified as men in the field of software engineering, and women are outnumbered by men 5:1 in that field [0]. There are many reasons why this might be true, but I think the one that makes the most sense to me is that our culture discriminates against women who program (and women in science and tech in general).

[0] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development...

I think its funny I'm getting downvoted because people are projecting onto what I said. Hint: there are more possible answers to the question "Why aren't there more women programmers?" other than "the industry discriminates against them" and "they are not qualified."

There's an embarrassing amount of circumstantial evidence.

There's an embarrassing amount of douchebaggery, for sure. But I'm not convinced that the reason women are misrepresented in programming is as simple as stopping a few assholes from putting slides with misogynist garbage on them at conferences, etc. If only it were so simple. I think it is rooted in deeper problems that expand well beyond the realms of our little bubble of software engineering. The same could be said of many fields that men are largely absent from as well by way of self-exclusion.

To be clear I support the Hacker School/Etsy program completely but took issue with the fact that the parent claimed that it's completely obvious that the reason women have a small presence in software engineering is because of discrimination by a minority of people in our field. I think a lot more women than men simply end up not having an interest in the field due to larger societal issues with gender roles and the way we raise our children and the paths put in front of them, and this is a problem worth solving and programs like this help break those assumptions down. The fact that there are dumbasses who think because there aren't many women in the room they can act like children is a symptom that happens way late in the game. The assholes will evaporate once the deeper problems are solved.

The right solution would be to get women interested in technology from an early age, not by raising the numbers artificially by creating a sexist scholarship.

When you want to solve a problem, is it better to wait until someone else implements what you believe to be the "right" solution (assuming you don't have the resources to do it yourself, which in this case neither etsy nor hacker school do), or is it better to simply do what you can with the resources you have to try to solve it?

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today."

That was an abuse of flagging. It's fine (though boring after a while) to complain about links to sites whose policies you disagree with, but not to flag them as offtopic.

Is this topic a honeypot for flagging? I accidentally flagged this and oops, my flagging link on all stories is gone.

Is the flagging of any and all Microsoft positive stories also an abuse of flagging?

Well my apologies then, and thank you for the clarification on the flagging policy. I do seem to note my ability to flag stories seems to have vanished if only temporarily....

I don't understand why you think it's boring for participants to complain about policies they dislike about the organizations that post here. Especially when those policies relate to hackers, hackers and society, or even just our roles as citizens in society.

I think this is one way how awareness is raised, and changed effected, and I think it's especially valuable on forums like this one, that are widely read and respected throughout the industry.

Personally, I would like to see Etsy offer grants to people in need, regardless of sex or gender. I think that's every bit as much an issue for Hackers as women's status in hackerdom, or whether Ubuntu has gone too far this time.

What would be more boring is a policy of don't say anything out of fear of being controversial on Hacker News.

I don't think pg meant it was boring for people to complain about policies they don't like. He seems to have meant it was boring for people to complain about linking to sites that they don't like. I don't think you actually did that directly, but you did say you flagged it, which could be construed the same way.

Well, whoop-de-fucking doo. Do you feel better now?

That's not sexism, it's GENDER DISCRIMINATION. And it's intended to counterbalance the years of bullshit that women have gone through because of the knuckle-draggers and others who aren't really concerned about such issues in charge. People who get a limited grasp on an idea and then try to twist the evidence to incorporate their world view, rather than doing joined-up thinking based on, you know, actual evidence.

I have spent years addressing the lack of all types of diversity in the open source world generally (and the Python community specifically) and I applaud efforts to increase female participation in information technology and open source. It is unconscionable that the gender balance in the open source software world is EVEN WORSE than in IT and the hi-tech world generally. But all you can do is bleat on about your nephew being discriminated against. Can't you see the larger good that this discrimination offers?

Did you also think the reverse discrimination applied to allow more black people to partake of opportunities which they had formerly been unconstitutionally denied was racist? I am aware there are some people who do, and they are peddling exactly the same type of bullshit as this.

Jerry, of course it is unfair. But life is rarely fair. This is more about barriers than fairness. Being a woman in a male-dominated field is rough. There are a lot of barriers to overcome along the way. This grant is simply removing one barrier in that path. Has removing this barrier made the path fair now? Definitely not, the path is still very unfair to women. We have a long way to go, but like I said, life is rarely fair, we can only strive to try to make it fair along the way.

You got a lot of flack from others from this comment. To be honest, I agree with you.

I always opposed women only events, and I think these grants are also horrible.

Maybe it is an USA problem, but I worked in various industries (games, banking, insurance, B2B, B2C) all over Europe and never saw much discrimination against women (not saying didn't happen). Sure the ratios are skewed, but everywhere I worked, I worked with women, some in software development, some artists, some managers.

People want to have reasons why women are outnumbered in CS, but I truly believe that many women don't like CS (whether by biological or social pressures). When I was in university, my course (math and computer science) had a 50:50 ratio. By the last year, I say more than half switched to more 'social' courses. None I interacted with stated they were discriminated, most just said they didn't want to spend so much time in front of a computer and preferred more 'social' work. Heck, in the last year of highschool here you have to decide what uni/course you apply, except two girls from many I was friends with wanted to get a CS degree, opposed to many of the guys.

Another point. My wife loves math and chemistry and puzzle solving. She sees me programming and more than once asked me to teach her. I'm more than happy to do it, but as soon as she has to spend a lot of time in front of a computer she gives up. She's smart (probably more than me) but she just doesn't want to do such a solitary activity.

It can be social pressures since they are children to focus on more girly things, and I believe we should focus on that, but focusing the problem on adult women with these kind on initiatives is wrong. By the same token, I'm pretty sure Portuguese white males are underrepresented in Hacker School. Should I get a grant as well? What about Jamaican programmers?

Let me see if I'm hearing you right:

1) I'm a man, and I don't notice sexism, therefore it doesn't exist.

2) The women I've talked to never told me they experienced discrimination, therefore it doesn't exist.

3) My wife doesn't like programming, therefore all women don't like programming.

4) Being Portuguese is an equivalent status within the technical community as being a woman, and should be treated equivalently.

Is that what you're saying?

1) no, but I do notice this seems to be more pervasive in the USA. I have very good female friends in tech here. NONE say they notice sexism.

2) again no, and I point to 1, I am talking about my personal experience

3) For fuck's sake, really? Every woman wants to be a programmer, but we men are way too sexist to let it happen. Did you get you 'Prevent your woman from attending CS whip' yet? I sure like to use mine! That is what is fucking happening in the world. My entire post was about MY experience with women in and out of tech. Not some grand generalisation about women. But having a freaking PG idea that men and women are 100% equal, biologically is pretty dumb. Men are attracted to different things than women, and it is POSSIBLE (only possible) that CS is one of those things.

4) Why not? How many Portuguese CEO's on Silicon Valley are there? Or black CEO's? Or do we just care about the women but not native american men? Or asian? Or brazilian? Heck, if any grant should be given, it's probably to out of NY people (men and women) as they have the most to lose by moving there to attend Hacker School.

I'll tell you one thing, you can get many women here talking about being discriminated against, but honestly, as a man, I probably been more discriminated than them. I decided to take a break a while ago from CS to work with special needs children. For that I needed a degree in either elementary teaching or kindergarden teacher before getting my specialisation. I chose kindergarden. I can bet you a million bucks I was more discriminated there than any women at a Python or Ruby conference (I was sexually assaulted, I had parents refusing to let me be with their kids, I had internships refused, had bad grades as I couldn't turn in some papers as I wasn't allowed to do my job).

If you ask women who work in tech, and if they feel comfortable telling you the truth, many of them will respectfully disagree with you. Just because you do not perceive bias or discrimination does not mean it is not there. I was recently at a women's event at the Southern California Linux Expo and everybody had a story to tell. I am glad Hacker School is explicitly trying to be welcoming, because I'm sure there are talented women out there sitting on the fence about whether they are "good enough" to take a leap of faith and do something like this.

As I mentioned, and I think others have as well in other threads, this seems more like a USA thing. And I would say some of them were comfortable telling me the truth as some of them in college I was dating. In the work place I never dated any, but was close friends with some and never heard a complain. Actually, thinking about it, while the ratio is skewed in the programming front, where I worked, there was a tendency (albeit small) for women to be more represented in higher level positions. Heck, I just accepted a job leading a team at a startup where all programmers are men, but both C level executive are women.

Why do you see a positive incentive to female applicants as an implicit disincentive to male applicants?

Let's be fair here -- the grants originally were sponsored by Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/etsy-hacker-grants-suppor...), so your angst should be directed at Etsy's policies, not at Hacker School.

Let me also say that Nick and Dave (and I assume the others) are awesome people.

Without checking the link, and assuming you are correct, I think Hacker School would be advised to make the grants from Etsy known, and leave it at that.

Make them known so that students who are accepted can apply to Etsy for the grants, but otherwise have little else to do with it. And that puts responsibility for the discrimination on Etsy.

And perhaps ask Etsy if they can't make their grants available to need based students regardless of sex and gender identification.

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Angst means fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and anxious, anxiety are of similar origin). The word angst was introduced into English from Danish angst via existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil.

I think it's prejudicial and bullshit to describe my protest against a sexist discriminatory grant as somehow an expression of angst.