I Spent Spring Break Teaching Girls to Code
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Then in my apprenticeship, we had one single woman in our class. As far as I remember, she only took that apprenticeship because of her father, who was the boss of some IT company. She quit it after three (of four) years. And no, there wasn't even one single comment regarding her being female.
The other girls at that tech school looked at us in funny ways, sometimes saying things like "Oh look, these guys must be the strange programmer nerds! OMG!" - which was funny, because we usually acted more "normal" than they did.
I don't know what it's like today. It's been about six years since then. But at least back then, the women here simply weren't interested in programming. I got to know two female Swiss programmers until now, and I haven't heard from both of them for more than 5 years now.
But what was "programming"? Was it a skill/profession, or a lifestyle that was being offered to the women? I think it's often seen as a lifestyle - i.e. programmers only eat pizza and wear hackathon t-shirts and spend their free time playing video games. Of course this is wildly inaccurate. Good programmers need to only have knowledge and an interest and ability to learn more - what you eat, wear, and enjoy as a hobby shouldn't matter. But if you go to someone and ask if she wants to give up her own lifestyle and own interests to become a "programmer", she's going to say no.
I suspect that so many people enjoy the stereotypical activities that they're unable to separate out the programming lifestyle from the actual skills necessary.
Are you saying that the stereotypical programming lifestyle is equally appealing to men and women? Just looking at video games, I don't think that's the case. For instance, I recently started playing Dragon Age Origins, and playing as a female Gray Warden, I kept getting repeated comments from NPCs saying "Really? A female Gray Warden. Wouldn't expect that", and so forth. Why would a woman choose to make a video game that is continuously surprised that she exists? I really enjoyed the game, but it's honestly the stuff like that that tells you in subtle ways that you're not welcome.
Dragon Age Origins is a medieval fantasy setting, right? I guess that they were more concerned with creating a setting that was more in line with our view of an European medieval age-inspired fantasy setting, as opposed to some parallel universe where men and women are equally represented in fighting classes/hero roles.
I haven't played a Dragon Age game so I might be missing something/getting something wrong.
As a side-note, the "a woman to do a man's job, really?" is a common revenge/I'll-show-them trope used to build up to a pay-off involving proving those people wrong. Or just telling them off immediately, but that is a less satisfying variation.
Secondly, I think attributing the mild sexism in the game to intentional world-building is a bit of a stretch, considering that the main religious figure in the game is a warrior woman prophet. I don't think women warriors would be such a surprise in that world! It's more likely that it's just something that came from our current society that got mapped onto the game because the creators didn't think about it. It's unfortunate, because with such an interesting mythology, you could do some really novel cultural things in that world.
Anyways, I've gotten off topic, but I do think there are characteristics that make it easier to blend into the programmer lifestyle (such as video games) and characteristics that make it harder (such as liking fashion) and all of those characteristics contribute to the person's choice of whether to become a programmer, especially since programming is more of an all-consuming occupation than most. And, these characteristics are not equally shared between men and women.
(Side note: I was however, endlessly amused that the psych course which had 2 guys and ~120 girls had no such concerns about equality...)
Literally and honestly brought a tear to my eye. The world needs more people like Christina Li.
I find this ironic coming from an Asian women. Maybe she means a lack of white women in computer science. I recall my University lectures were dominated by Asian students, and of those, the gender balance was pretty even. Among non-Asian students, the vast majority were white men.
Her point stands regardless of the fact that she is a women in tech: there is a lack of women in tech, when compared to other professions such as Law or Medicine.
Not that would be stupid.
> Her point stands regardless
You can be ironic and correct at the same time you know!
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are famous for being titans of industry. They are not known for their technical abilities. Steve Jobs never even wrote code.
>Maybe it’s because of the still prevalent mindset that women shouldn’t be in engineering at all.
Is this is an actual prevalent mindset? I've literally never encountered it in the last two decades, although I also never attended university. I do assume, as a white male, that I would be approached by other males who would confide such prejudices in me. I've certainly been approached by white people (in non-engineering contexts) who assumed I would be comfortable with racist behavior so I feel like I would be soaking in obvious, blatant examples of this claim, but it has literally never happened.
Is this just an underlying assumption people have, and it goes unchallenged because of the apparent prevailing belief that contradicting a woman about sexism claims is also sexism? Is it a mindset that one finds primarily on campus? Have I just been lucky in selecting employers?
This is true curiosity, although I'll certainly understand if some of you are too emotional about the topic to avoid downvoting me for asking the question. I've had enough tangles over this issue to know that it's fairly rare to find people willing to calmly discuss these things.
I also recognized that it has took me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to a point where I recognize it. 10 years ago, many of the things that would set off the "Hey; that does seem right" alarm bell would be unconsciously ignored and taken at face value.
If I may presume, I'm going to suggest that your experience may be because you're more 'attuned' to racism than you are to sexism. For me, at least, it takes effort and willful learning to come to better grips with sexism, racism, ageism, etc. It's hard work!
Although not a certain identifier many people do rely on screen names to discern gender. I ask because if HN had avatars and I had a picture of me and my sister together, with my current nickname, people would likely assume I'm my sister. Even if the photo focused more on me than her (like your profile pic focuses more on you than your little brother). Simply because my username is a female name. Furthermore, without knowing we were family, many people would also assume we were dating. A mistake that actually occurred at school quite frequently from people who didn't know us, since we were nearly always together.
I'd understand the mistake. Of course, I'd correct them after. But I wouldn't take offense at the mistake. It's silly to expect people to know everything about you (even if you have a bio! Not everyone actually reads those.)
I've been mistaken for a girl even when using a picture of myself and only myself as my profile. The individual who made the mistake actually thought that was a picture of "my boyfriend" and I had a night full of laughter at the mistake (as did they after I corrected them).
I've been asked by online friends if I was male or female - months after meeting them - because it never usually gets brought up. I always ask them which they think I am before answering, out of curiosity, and most of them believe me to be female. I guess I need to cut down on my use of emoticons in shorter text forms and work on speaking more manly? I don't know.
I have a hard time seeing scenarios like this as sexism rather than honest mistakes that simply happen...
E:
My real name is a name used by both genders but more predominately by females rather than males. That probably contributes to the confusion over my gender to those who know me long enough to learn my name. I never actually thought about how my name contributes to the confusion until I typed up this post. I can see why people who attribute my name as a feminine name would think I'm female. Enlightening in a small way.
Likewise, if a man goes to a nursing conference, or a conference for elementary school teachers, he will likely face the same sorts of misunderstandings.
I wasn't trying to imply this sort of sexism doesn't happen. Woman being asked which man they are attending a Hackathon with happens frequently! The assumption being they aren't attending on their own or aren't hackers, etc.
I was more worried about cases where genuine mistakes being clumped with sexism when they really shouldn't be.
The concept seems so outlandish to me that I'm not sure how to word the question more politely, sorry.
And it was clear that I wouldn't have heard those stories unless I had gone out of my way to understand what the "angry" people were mad about, and waded through quite a lot of background material. It was clear that no one would've trusted me with that kind of story until after I demonstrated that I had done some work to learn the basics of "offensiveness". Which, I had honestly only really done because I was in love with this girl who was into it. Kind of ironic really. I think that's how a lot of how this stuff grows though, you're a homophobe until someone you love turns out to be gay and then all of the sudden you figure it out.
Anyway after hearing enough stories about people like me carelessly, unknowingly fucking up other peoples' days, it clicked that I could never really know how many people I was hurting. And that knowledge just bugs me. I don't just want the illusion I'm being good to the people around me, I really want to feel secure that I'm doing a good job of that. It's how my Dad felt, not that he (or I) are necessarily the best at it. It's just my personality. And that provides the motivation to slow down and try to understand train wrecks that I could easily scoot on right by.
Of course, I wouldn't usually phrase it in such a coldly logical way, so here's a practical example: when I meet someone in a professional context, I usually ask about background/expertise early on. This way, I avoid making unconscious assumptions like "she probably isn't an engineer" or "these people will all grok the super-technical explanation I'm about to launch into".
Another example: some of my relatives are more religious/traditional, so I avoid topics and words that wouldn't go over well when around them. Or: I'm in Greece, so I don't ask for Turkish coffee. And so on.
For example, I've always found it easy to hail a taxi; it wasn't until a few months ago I learned it can be hard to get a taxi when you're black.
That's information that can be useful if I'm travelling with a black friend or colleague; or discussing the merits of electronic taxi hailing, or the place of taxis in a public transport system.
Offensive things exist, it's simply a matter of whether you want to be aware of things that offend others or not. You can not put in the effort and walk around ignorant of behavior that offends people, or you can put in the effort because getting along with others generally requires not offending them.
For example, if you don't see sexism all around you, you aren't paying attention. If you don't see racism all around you, you aren't paying attention; our society is littered with both and women and minorities don't have the luxury of ignoring them.
Please do keep in mind that this is an international forum, and the people you talk to mind come from wildly dissimilar societies than you.
For example where i grew up there was relatively little sexism, instead women were often the stronger people who more commonly fed the family. Similarly there was very little racism, though primarily due to a lack of people from foreign countries.
It may be, but largely the people here are from the United States. The international audience is by far a minority. Beyond that sexism and racism run rampant throughout the entire world, that you might be from a place you don't think it's very evident doesn't negate that reality.
> instead women were often the stronger people who more commonly fed the family
That's still sexist, just against men. Sexism doesn't mean putting down women. Not treating the sexes equally is sexist.
Instead of looking for wrongs, they become apparent to you, and there's a moral duty to not look away.
What it suggests is a lack of empathy, which extends to your assuming that other people are also incapable of empathy. Sorry, I'm also not sure how to word that more politely.
Imagine, for a moment, that other people are honest in their assertion that they are offended (for example that women find some common, everyday behavior offensive and sexist).
Imagine, for a moment that other people are capable of feeling empathy for those people (for example, that they have learned, through empathy, to notice the same sexist behavior and find it offensive, even though they are not women).
Then you might realize that they are not 'spending time and effort to find offensiveness', but just capable of empathy. Sorry if that seems outlandish, but.. it's the truth, sorry.
So now we're left with: why this set of people?
And while I'm sure there is a complex framework of narratives and rationalizations and models of power structures, etc. in support of who gets to be in the in-group and who doesn't, to me it seems mostly like a case of mindless tribalism.
Presenting/accepting horrifyingly bad arguments like "you don't share my viewpoint because you're incapable of empathy" is not done because people actually believe in them, but as a signal of tribal membership.
Not a whit, because after considering the situation I have concluded that same-sex marriage, while it may offend them, does not harm them. There's a world of difference between offended and harmed. My thought process goes, "hey, I can see people being harmed by not being able to get married to the person they love, while these people over there who are offended are going to be just fine not-gay-marrying each other."
I think those who prioritize their offense over others' harm really do lack empathy. (This is why, despite a personal dislike of a number of rather loud social justice activists, I'll go to bat for the causes that they support, while I can be offended by their conduct, they are right and others are being harmed. I am an adult and can put up with being offended to help others not be harmed.)
Wrong point of view in my opinion. I had the same question on my mind and it needs a qualifier not because it's impolite, but because you might be offended by it. Those are two entirely separate things.
That said, nothing of what you said makes it any easier to accept your answers, for me personally, because i still have no idea what things you're seeing as offensive that you might've missed earlier and i still can't compare whether i would've missed the same things, or whether those things weren't present in my environments.
Would you care to bring up some concrete examples?
That's not what the GP asked. They asked
> Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?
which is an entirely different question (with a very obvious subtext to boot).
I can completely see how the chain of posts, especially when one ignores the first one, may be read differently.
However i personally still read the posts as culminating the in the question:
What are concrete examples, so I may gauge whether i need to pay more attention, or have a different environment?
Assume for the sake of argument that, as you suggested, you've identified a statement in the course of conversation that someone else might find offensive. What's your recourse and how does it benefit society?
If you've simply misinterpreted the person's meaning (which I'd argue is more often than not the case), you probably force them to spend time clarifying and maybe they endeavor to spend more time and effort to avoid similar misunderstanding in the future - all to avoid the hypothetical situation where they might have actually offended someone (who could have just asked for similar clarification).
Perhaps instead you've actually identified some unintentionally disclosed socially unacceptable bias that the person holds. The offense you've taken is still imaginary (I guess you'd argue it's actually empathetic) so chances are you're not in a good position to reshape that person's belief system - especially since hiding the belief in the first place suggests they know it's socially unacceptable. Rather, you're more likely just teaching the person to hide their bias more convincingly. I think most people find hidden bias much more insidious.
The best case, I suppose, is shaming some intentionally offensive statement. This one seems reasonable to me. However, if the statement was intentionally offensive, you probably didn't need the mental gymnastics to identify it in the first place.
I'm open to any counter-arguments you might have; I just thought I'd clarify my own stance since your accusation seemed a little harsh.
I'd also recommend an anecdote by Michael Kimmel, see the section "MAKING PRIVILEGE VISIBLE" at http://www.fjaz.com/kimmel.html.
Aren't most of their teachers, friends, and roughly half of their parents women?
Social norms which preserve group (race, sex/gender, caste, etc.) roles are rarely present among only the group whose acceptable roles under those norms are also those most valued.
I find it nearly impossible to believe that, in this environment, girls aren't encountering "you go girl!" from their teachers, multiple times a day.
For example, a 1999 review[0] of the literature noted that teachers "tend to stereotype mathematics as a male domain, [...] overrate male students' mathematics capability, have higher expectations for male students and more positive attitudes about male students".
Look, if even ONE woman in computer science said to you that her high school math teacher told her that she wouldn't be well suited for Computer Science, you don't tell her, "I find it impossible to believe you." Chances are, dozens of other men have already said the same thing -- and that can be just as discouraging as the original comment.
[0] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0013188990410106
Perhaps you do encounter it, but just think it's so normal that you don't even recognize it.
The most obvious example I encounter is: a woman who may be of average or above average attraction, and the assumption is she is not an engineer, but instead:
a. Marketer
b. Sales
c. Social Media Manager
d. Community Manager
e. Office Assistant
Further examples--attractiveness means a woman got where she is because of something other than her technical ability.
Or even that attractiveness is even relevant at all.
I think you are not familiar with what sexism is, and confuse it with misogyny. There is nothing about sexism to contradict, and beliefs, prevalent or otherwise, have nothing to do with it. Sexism is simply a state of affairs where women have less power than men in society. Sexism in tech is a fact, especially in software, as it is the only white-collar industry that has seen female participation consistently drop over the past couple of decades, unlike other industries (including science, medicine and other form of engineering) where women participation has been steadily on the rise. As tech is an industry that holds a lot of power, the decline in women participation is sexism.
Your claim that you personally have not witnessed overt misogyny has, therefore, little to do with the reality of sexism. Arguing with women or men about the reality of sexism is also unnecessary, as it is a proven fact.
Is teaching in this subject also (sic) "absolutely dominated by female"? I doubt it. It's also an incredible amount of work to organize something like this. Kudos to anyone, regardless of gender, who takes this kind of thing on.
I have two little girls. When they're a bit older, I hope some motivated individual is around to put on an event like this for them. If not, maybe that person will be me. :)
http://www.oecd.org/std/37964549.pdf
FEMALE DOMINATED OCCUPATIONS IN 20 OECD COUNTRIES, Women to Men Ratio
Pre-primary Education Teaching Associate Professionals 14.5:1
Primary Education Teaching Associate Professionals 6.2:1
Special Education Teaching Professionals 5.6:1
Primary and Pre-primary Education Teaching 5.3:1
> It's also an incredible amount of work to organize something like this.
I never said it was simple or unneeded.
All engineers I know who worth their salt acquired their skills mostly through self-education and lot of practice, and the process was gender-independent. I don't think 'boys-are-not-allowed' classes will put any of the participants closer to professional careers in coding.
Its related to the validity of your "observation", in that, if teaching to code is not a female-dominated activity, your "observation" that she chose a female-dominated activity is false.
> All engineers I know who worth their salt acquired their skills mostly through self-education and lot of practice, and the process was gender-independent
Oh, well, if we are going to do dueling anecdotes, all programmers (even if including that population within engineers is proper, there are a lot of engineers outside of that group, and I'm not talking about them, since this is about teaching coding, not teaching engineering in some general sense) worth their salt I know started by being taught by someone -- usually in school or a similar environment, though sometimes tutoring by a family member with experience in the field played a similar role -- at a fairly young age, and then, after developing an interest there, proceeded to choose further education -- both guided and autodidactic -- and lots of practice.
Well, if you insist on reductio at absurdum, let's continue on. Teaching to code in gilrs-only classes is obviously not a male-dominated activity, would you agree on that?
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This side of the pond, it's fun to observe how Americans try to integrate minorities into bigger groups. The usual tools are: "positive discrimination", ban on open discussion and general patronising attitude on the side of a majority. Because that worked just oh so well with racial minorities.
Last thing women need is your 'knight in the shiny armour' stance toward them. Just treat them as equals, and they'll beat you in your own game once interested enough. It's that easy.
(And, yes, I'm a married man; a father of a beautiful, independent and ambitious daughter; and a hiring manager, with 100% women applicants being hired so far: for being great engineers, albeit a bit unconfident, hence only applying when absolutely sure they're up for the job).
I don't know what the rant in the rest of your post has to do with this diverged; it looks like a canned rant unrelated to the immediate discussion.
Doctors and Lawyers look more professional, and perhaps that appeals more broadly to the women who would otherwise be qualified to go into tech?
Presumably because women don't want to be associated with "men who live in their parents basements."
That's pretty similar to women don't want to be associated with "people who don't fit conventional stereotypes."
Blatant sexism hasn't stopped women from achieving in other fields: medicine, law, business, so I wouldn't expect blatant sexism to stop women from achieving in computer science.
Instead, I think that Computer Science doesn't have broad appeal the way other professional fields do.
I asked my wife this question. Her answer.... It achieves the goal because women traditionally earn less money than men for the same job. I was stunned. Maybe she's right.
The Gender Pay Gap in the US is all but non-existant, and the largest discrepancy is due the fact that women are less likely to negotiate more than men.
> The goal of most software projects is to cut costs and increase revenue for some line of business. How does bringing more women into programming help?
There aren't enough good engineers to fill the open software positions. Increasing the pool of qualified applicants directly impacts the ability for teams to deliver software.