Comment by kunil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kunil | Hacker News Reader

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I don't want to sound sexist but could be, just could be, is it possible that women are not as capable as when it comes to programming. waits for flames

I was a student assistant. I gave lab courses (lots of different types, cs 101, ai, graphics etc) and there wasn't a single girl that can actually do good. Sure there was some who can memorize a whole textbook and get A in grades thanks to exams but that was it. They were at best average for my case. And In my school, girl ratio is not that bad either. Even when I was a student, there was a single girl that applied and graduated as same year as males, all other females failed and prolonged their schools.

I am sure most of you met exceptional woman programmers, I am not denying that there might be exceptions. But from my personal experience women is not as capable as men in tech. That is pretty much my reasoning why there are so low interest in tech related courses/jobs for women

> I don't want to sound sexist but could be, just could be, is it possible that women are not as capable as when it comes to programming.

It's a flawed argument. In a group of male programmers, fully half of them are below average (yes, I'm sure). Should the less accomplished 50% be subject to ridicule as intellectually inferior? No, they should be given equality of opportunity, and let the cards fall there they may.

All women want is the same equality of opportunity that every male programmer gets without question.

> But from my personal experience women is not as capable as men in tech.

I'm sure you've heard of "confirmation bias", but, in case you haven't:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Quote: "... a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses."

>In a group of male programmers As I said, male-female ratio is not that bad. Maybe 25% of total class? I am not sure about the numbers though.

I am not trying to ridicule people, It is just some facts I encountered before.

"confirmation bias"

It is not like I can be biased now, because there is no longer a data set for me. There is like 2-3 women (out of ~50) in the department I am working and they are not directly related to my area, weird huh?

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