

A Girl Who Codes - This is what change looks like - elleferrer
http://www.fastcompany.com/3021466/a-girl-who-codes

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tachyonbeam
> Rau, in other words, is the very opposite of the sort of computer programmer
> you would imagine: a guy with pasty skin who hasn't showered in days,
> sitting in a dark room tapping away on a keyboard through the night.

I wish they would stop projecting such stereotypes of teenage male
programmers. Isn't it possible to celebrate Rau and others like her without
what seems like attempts at character assassination on male programmers?

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Jun8
This article should be studied, not for being yet another post about the
gender imbalance in coding, but for being an excellent example of how _not_ to
write about this issue.

Apart from the somewhat historically inaccurate linkbait title "Computing has
always been a boy's club", I noticed the following things:

* Note the contracts of the usage of _boys_ and _young women_. Although the term _girl_ is used throughout the article, whenever the author wants to refer to Nikita Rau or women coders in a more professional way she uses _young women_ , presumably because _girls_ is belittling. Yet, she frequently uses _boys_ in a somewhat derogatory way, e.g. "boy's club", "boy's are silly".

* It's understandable that Nikita uses a logo that targets women only, e.g. "bright pink, surrounded by pink dots", Girls Who Code uses pink extensively and after all it's her club. Yet, when boys react to feeling being excluded she resorts to "Boys are stupid, I think to myself, but Rau is Zen about it." How's this different than what's been done to exclude girls all these years from coding?

* The author uses the standard crude and uninformed coder stereotype "a guy with pasty skin who hasn't showered in days, sitting in a dark room tapping away on a keyboard through the night". Not only is this offensive to programmers out there and thereby makes her lose their support, she doesn't even begin to understand that this very stereotype she's using is one of the big roadblocks against having more women coders.

* A false dichotomy is presented to show the effectiveness of Nikita's education, presumably compared to standard coding education approaches as "Lessons were based in problem solving, not binary abstractions." It is argued (in a muddy way) that this is an important factor in attracting more Women to the field. No adequate reason is provided for this. It should be noted that such differences in learning between the sexes, even if they exist, should be taken into account but not stressed as that can lead to perception of women coders as being taught "programming light" and not the hardcore stuff.

* A couple of anecdotal overgeneralizations from Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code are presented as truths, e.g. "The thing I struggle with is, girls have a natural inclination not to want to pick a job just to make money."

There are other points like this in the remaining part of the article but let
me stop here.

