How to teach your girlfriend programming
blog.jakubarnold.cz
blog.jakubarnold.cz
EDIT: Fine, if you read into the preface where he talks about his programmer friends I guess they are all male. That's hardly hopelessly mired, it's more like an unfortunate choice of description. I bet the author would assume women programmers feel the exact same way about their partners as well.
The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is still the norm, and it would be great if we could be recognised as equals, and not for us to be expected to assume it in the face of exclusion.
Language is important, because it affects how we perceive one another. So jacalata's comment serves as a polite critisism. Women are people too, and you all know that, but sometimes some folks need to be reminded to reflect that in their language.
In no way does he ever objectify his girlfriend and you just project to no end. Where does he exclude "the idea of female programmers completely". Maybe in the same way that he excludes the idea of "dead rhinos", because it isn't the point. The point his, he is excited about his girlfriend wanting him to teach her about programming and wrote about it. Go rain on someone elses parade.
To your other point, there is nothing polite about insulting others with sexist labels. The 'polite criticism reminds people woman are people too' tirade... ending with the "and you all know that"/"some folks", is just priceless and telling passive aggressive form after preaching against the bad male sexist programmer that should watch his language.
I was attempting to be fair to the author, assuming his best intentions. A strawman on my part would have been to assume the worst intentions of the author.
Nowhere did I claim the author was objectifying his girlfriend. Who is projecting here, exactly?
Sexist labels? Tirade? I wasn't upset in my comment at all, nor did I label anyone. You seem to be offended, but you have failed to describe why, or to ask for explanation on my part. You have accused and judged me without quantifying your arguments in the slightest. I hope you didn't see my comment as an attack on yourself, or an attack on men, as feminist arguments are often mistaken to be). I'm sorry if I offended you, but I think I deserve a more fair and constructive dialogue than the one you've provided.
It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and learns quite a bit about programming in six months. I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims the woman in question was quite capable even though she was not in the field. He explicitly mentions that she's a political science student; that's the only reason he had for thinking she'd be unable to do it.
"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program" where he uses himself and his girlfriend as the "everyprogrammer" and every(wo)man. If you are going to decide he is sexist and then interpret his use of himself as the programmer to implicitly or explicitly mean only men know how to program, well, that seems to unfairly make assumptions about the intent of the author.
God forbid we claim a political science student might not be able to learn programming if she happens to be a woman.
^ That is exactly what I'm talking about. It may be obvious to you, but from my perspective it's exclusionary. It says this article is not meant for me. Which would be fine if not for the fact that it could absolutely be meant for me, if not for the fact that I'm a woman. Do you see what I mean? It's so hard to hard to convey this shit...
Okay, imagine there's an article called "How to teach your boyfriend to use proper hygiene". And it's written in the same way as this article, with a girl describing her own experience with her non-hygienic boyfriend, and it's written in the same instructional manner, using language that implies (however indirectly) that boyfriends in general are un-hygienic.
Wouldn't you be at least a little annoyed by the assumption? Now, what if you saw shit like that in the vast majority of content you read, online and out in the world? That's what it's like for us; especially those of us women in typically male-dominated professions. It's harder for men to see, because it doesn't affect men, and it's still very socially normative. And when we point it out, men often see it as an attack on all men. And it's not personal. Most folks have the best intentions. But I feel I need to call this shit out when I see it, because awareness invokes change. I try my best not to offend people, but I'm sick of being excluded because of my gender, when my gender make up half the damn population.
Ugh.
I also hate that women are excluded from what they want to do because of sexist bullshit. Please if this is actually sexist, point me to the exact parts or wordings that indirectly imply girlfriends in general are incapable of programming, so that I can never write a similar thing.
It starts with the title. "How to teach your girlfriend programming" immediately tells women that this article isn't for her; it's for her boyfriend, so he can teach her.
The rest of the article regularly enforces this exclusion. He's talking to men.
Almost every time he refers to his girlfriend, he says "my girl", which, in the context of a professional article, is belittling. He says "my girlfriend" twice. Never does he say "my partner", which would have made the article much more inclusive.
"Every one of them told me they don’t want a programmer girl, they said they would go crazy. But I call that bullshit. It was just their fear talking."
There is so much wrong with these sentences. Why say "programmer girl"? They are women who don't want to be programmers. Saying it was their fear talking, and calling it bullshit, invalidates these women's legitimate concern for how the people in their lives will view them if they go into this field. Their fear isn't bullshit, the expectations of our society are bullshit (for the record, a lot of expectations made of men are bullshit too).
"What’s really everyone thinking is that it is impossible to find a girl who would be good looking, intelligent, interested in programming, and above all else, interested in you, the socially awkward geek. What are the odds of getting all of that?"
This whole paragraph reinforces the fact that the author is speaking only to men. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is totally relevant to women as well, with partners of any sex. It's not difficult to tell your own experience, a perspective of your own gender, and relate it to everyone.
"But let me tell you a secret brother, she doesn’t need to know all of this stuff. Everything in life can be learned."
Here again. How can you not see this?
"You can explain pointers, manual memory management, stack & heap allocation, garbage collection and much more in just a couple of hours if you chose the right metaphors."
So women can't understand these concepts without metaphors? Come on, man. And yes, he is talking about women, because it is expressed over and over that this article is for men, and it's about their girlfriends.
"But what if you had knives and wanted to teach your girl how to sort them (obviously by size)? You might have to do it two or three times for her to really believe you that it works, but the algorithm itself is stupidly simple."
What the fuck, dude. Sorting knives? The kitchen is aREALLY bad choice of setting for your first example of what a girl might want to program. Oh and don't forget that it might take two or three times for her to believe that you've done it. Sexist.
"It will be easy for her to understand once you find the right metaphor."
Sexist.
"The biggest obstacle here I would say is breaking the I would never understand that fear."
Invalidating, demeaning.
"to make some animations on her personal website that I made."
There is no reason to tell us that he made the website for her. It's a small thing, but it reinforces everything else. Mentioning it in this article is just unprofessional, and makes his girlfriend seem like a bimbo who couldn't do it herself if she tried.
"Basically I’m able to take what I know, extract the important things, throw away the 99.5% of wasted time on figuring out what is important and just teach her what she needs to know."
Her, she. More reinforcement. At this point in the article the author seems like he's trying to impress, and he's doing it at the expense of his girlfriend. He could easily have changed his language to reflect a more sincere and inclusive article. I will illustrate this by editing that paragraph.
"Basically, you want to convey the important information, and avoid the time that would be wasted for someone figuring this out on their own. Teach only what needs to be learned."
Personally, I disagree with his teaching method, but at least now the language is constructive and inclusive.
Look, I could cover the rest, but I have to go to work, and I'm sure you get the point. Remember too that all of this is caked deep in the historical and current context of the exclusion of women. I'm not saying the author is a terrible person for writing this, I'm just pointing out that his language excludes women and implies their technical inferiority.
And so it's sexist.
...wherein the narrator believes he has brought a woman to life, Frankenstein-style, and is teaching her about the world, but at the end it turns out that he was a fantasist and Bella is only odd to him because she is a modern independent woman (a suffragette, etc), and he is mired in the past.
Imagine an article about teaching other people how to, I don't know, paint with watercolors, and the author kept assuming his audience was women, teaching their hopefully attractive, fit boyfriends how to do it, even though it might seem like an impossible task.
But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.
The article wasn't written in the first person, it was written as instructional and in the second person (I vs you). Writing in the second person is generally an attempt to connect with an audience. Language choices such as using gender neutral pronouns and references can be made to connect more or less with different audiences, and this author rejected them because it wasn't worth it to him. I do not like his decision not to bother including me as his targeted audience. If you don't like that I don't like that, well that is your own inner workings, why does it bother you so much when I want to be included?
You are part of the potential audience, the girlfriend in the article is meant to represent every non-programmer (male and female) and he is meant to represent every programmer (male and female), and you full well know that. You are being ridiculous by asserting that everyone who doesn't write in the style you prefer is sexist.
I think it was a stupid article, but the only part remotely close to sexism was where he only described male programmer friends.
Especially try to be aware how many things you "know" as a "professional" are fully irrelevant details about the technologies or methods that are going to be obsolete in very, very short time. Most of the "knowledge" that make you money today is irrelevant even in just a few years. Or I have a lot of lectures about Clipper 5 and CP/M to teach you.
Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends? Why only girlfriends?
Audience = programmers. Programmers = at least 90% male. I don't know what proportion have girlfriends, but we can always hope the number is pretty good.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/american...)
So can I teach it to my girlfriend? Probably not. Partially because she's technologically challenged (she's cute that way) and as a medical student she already has tons on her plate.
But I must say I share your dreams of having a girl with whom I could discuss tech stuff the same way i discuss it with my friends
... okay so how do I "compress" this file
... i used that "tag thingie" but its not working
but they still learn it and are able to build websites sometimes even faster then the "technologically exposed".
In general technologically challenged doesn't mean stupid. Its just a lack of exposure to the technologies and in time they get the hang of it.
Great lesson of love here.