Comment by jere | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jere | Hacker News Reader

My initial reaction was "that's not the definition of hacker" but when I tried to find a written definition that matched what was in my head, I kept running into the related stereotypes and connotations (e.g. being completely obsessed with computers, Richard Stallman talking about coding until 7 in the morning).

I then read this link given in the article and I think I understand better http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/geekmyth....

My takeaway is this: a lot of us feel impostor syndrome, feel that we'll never be a true hacker. The difference is it appears easier for men, for whatever reason, to ignore or move beyond those feelings. And you know maybe that's a problem we should take seriously.

>Despite these feelings of difference, we find that male students report less distress, are less affected by the perceived difference between themselves and their peers, and leave the major in smaller proportion; and despite resistance to total absorption in computing, they do not feel like frauds. The 36% of male CS majors who say they feel different from their CS peers, regardless of experience level or obsession level, do not question their ability to become computer scientists if they choose to do so.

I enjoy RMS's take on being a "hacker": http://www.stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

Specifically, "Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking."

That's basically what I had in mind, with liberal use of the word "clever" thrown in for good measure. A concrete example outside of tech: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6921316

My concern, however, is even if you can produce a benign definition the term still has additional baggage that may be harmful.

There's an argument to be made for the negative connotations contributing to the term's longevity and adoption. In an environment where the myth of the genius is alive and kicking, taboos need to be broken to qualify for the label, though it's not always important what those taboos (social or otherwise) are as long as you have some worthy advocates. A lot of this labeling is done in hindsight, unsurprisingly, and it's going to become more tame as the definition gets generalized and romanticized. Even the coding part is slowly becoming less important, as shown in some of the posts and links here. Eventually there will be some other club to place the exceptional in. We can pretend there's no value judgement in calling someone a "hacker" all we want, but that doesn't ring true. FWIW, my favorite hacker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netochka_Nezvanova_(author)

That article could have been written about music and musicians. I'm a working jazz musician, and the number of women who I encounter on the bandstand is depressingly small.

Maybe this is not relevant, but did you ever read Blink? Your comment reminds me of the part in that book about auditions and gender bias: http://books.google.com/books?id=VKGbb1hg8JAC&lpg=PT142&ots=...

That's an interesting passage. Thanks!

The inroads made by women in classical music, especially when compared with other areas of the music business, are striking. And the levels of physical and emotional stamina needed to compete on the orchestral audition circuit are _staggering_.

The ultimate coding interview. ;-)

I've never had to compete at that level. Almost all of my calls are based on word-of-mouth. But I still remember my first paid gig. Talk about impostor syndrome!

That was my initial reaction also. I think our minds are old. I recently wrote a post (http://jonblack.org/2014/01/01/everyones-hacker/) about how the definition of "hacker" seems to be far broader than it used to be.

>And you know maybe that's a problem we should take seriously.

Why? I'm not trying to be snarky; I just don't see how this is a big deal at all, or why it's worth trying to "fix" it (if you believe that anything is "broken").

If that is one of the barriers that leads to fewer women studying CS, going into tech, yea, I think that's a pretty big problem.

What happens if there are fewer women studying CS? Do we reach critical levels and then people stop caring like how nobody says anything about the lack of men in hospitality and child care?

I usually don't care about those fields because they're not _my_ field, but I don't buy the argument no one is talking about it: https://www.google.com/search?q=lack+of+men+in+childcare

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