
Meet the wogrammers – women in engineering - anand-s
https://code.facebook.com/posts/419411098240886/meet-the-wogrammers-women-in-engineering
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Mithaldu
Regardless of how HN might not like the name, this is brilliant. Part of the
issue in tech is that especially learning women only ever hear in the news
about the problems and downsides, which gives no incentive to head in that
direction.

Addressing women directly and showing them successes of other women in the
field is likely to be a successful approach in the long term to change
demographics.

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convexfunction
The name is silly, yes, but I do wonder if this kind of thing even
accomplishes its stated goals. I've known a few programmers-who-are-women who
find the laser-focus on Women Can Program Too to be annoying ("yes, I'm a
woman, get over it"), insulting ("no shit, are you implying I couldn't?") or
outright counterproductive ("it makes it sound like tech is some sexist
hellhole that they have to beg women to even consider").

Like, I'm all for more people of whatever demographic feeling welcome in
technology (and any other industry, natch). It's not clear to me whether this
kind of PR actually accomplishes that, or does nothing because it's not
addressing the more important yet more illegible things ultimately that keep
women less interested in going into tech, or actively harms the cause through
the sexist implication that it's so special and noteworthy for women to be
interested in technology.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Women in programming should find it offensive because it changes how they are
viewed. Generally, the more help a sub group is seen being given to fit into
the larger group, the less the larger group thinks that the sub group belongs
on their own merits. Add in incidents like Donglegate and people will begin to
get a foundation to ground their biases which were originally unfounded.

~~~
Mithaldu
Wow, i'm as far as possible from the modern internet feminist as you can get,
but you just managed to create an amazingly accurate example of mansplaining.

This project is a dialogue between women. What anyone else thinks of it is
irrelevant.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>What anyone else thinks of it is irrelevant.

I use to live not caring, having been told to not care what others thought
about you. Then I realize just how much it does matter.

Also, I was talking about grandparents comment of "laser-focus on Women Can
Program Too", not this project specifically.

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Xophmeister
Probably should have come up with a better name. The natural English
syllabification of this is 'wog.ram.mers', rather than 'wo.gram.mers'. That's
a barrel of worms you don't want to open!... Which is a shame, because such an
initiative isn't one that should be pulled down because of something so
superficial.

EDIT: The natural _British_ English syllabification, where 'wog' is a
derogatory racial slur.

~~~
bshimmin
In my mind, strangely, it came out as "woeful programmers" \- "women" didn't
even occur to me.

Obviously this name is every bit as bad as the execrable "brogrammers".

~~~
venomsnake
Isn't brogrammer derogatory?

~~~
bshimmin
I'm sure it is on HN. There are probably places where they talk about ninjas
and rockstars where it might not (yet) be, I'm not sure.

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philbarr
"wogrammer" ?

Do we really need a word that exists purely to make the distinction between
male and female programmers? Seems to me you're just a programmer, sex doesn't
matter.

~~~
manux
It's not really about making the distinction, it's about recognizing a group
of people (women) that have achieved something that, on average, women have a
lot more trouble achieving for various reasons (including prejudice &
friends).

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scottmcdot
I initially thought it was something different:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wog](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wog)

~~~
cafard
Indeed. If one that expression, one wonders what the ramming is all about.

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moron4hire
Having actually read the article, this is the least-patronizing version of
anything that I could have imagined, given that name. It's a great effort, but
a really bad name.

Usually, you see these things not as an individual effort, but some sort of
corporatized outreach program, and then it is just awful. In the process of
supposedly trying to celebrate diversity, it just only further serves to paint
it as "The Other", the non-default.

But it's basically just an interview series that a few people are putting
together, specifically to treat the subject normally, not continue to
differentiate.

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Jem
"wogrammer"? Really? If there's one thing I don't need (as a woman in tech)
it's segregation further from your regular joe programmer.

Show me what other women are achieving - FANTASTIC - but quit with the bloody
ridiculous nicknames. (Don't even get me started on "mumpreneurs"!)

~~~
thiht
joegrammer sounds awesome!

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XorNot
Wow, _Silicon Valley_ the show got in way ahead of the curve on making jokes
about this.

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dudul
Nice, creating a word specially for female developers. Way to create inclusion
folks. How is it supposed to help people see 'programmers' as 'programmers'
regardless of their gender?

Can we invent words for Atheist programmers, for asian transgender
programmers, for black programmers who identify as dolphins?

And I won't even comment on the whole "wow! Women programmers! They are all
awesome!! xoxo". Some female programmers are great, some are terrible, most
are average. Just like male programmers. Stopping this pedestalizion is the
first step towards true equality.

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venomsnake
If cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional, why do we inflict it on
the english language?

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Dirlewanger
It's side-splittingly hilarious how unironically hypocritical company's
approaches to being more "friendly" to women. "What? We don't have enough of
these minorities in X field? Better highlight those that we DO have by
segmenting them according to that minority!"

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agounaris
Thats the most sexist word ever... kidogrammers, asianogrammers and bullshit
... get a life and stop seeing a gender, a race or anything else to your
colleague and just expect from him/her being polite and positive. When will we
get rid of this nonsense?

~~~
onion2k
_When will we get rid of this nonsense?_

As soon as people stop using it as an excuse to abuse, berate, degrade and
discriminate against people. These words, and the intent behind them, are not
the problem - they are a reaction to the problem. Rather than get annoyed with
people who invent words like 'wogrammers', why not direct your anger toward
the employers who refuse to hire women, or pay them less, or ignore sexual
harassment. _Those_ people are the problem.

~~~
dylanjermiah
>why not direct your anger toward the employers who refuse to hire women, or
pay them less, or ignore sexual harassment

Do you have any data, which controls for the appropriate variables, to support
that?

~~~
onion2k
The fact that you're questioning whether or not sexism is really a thing is
quite a big part of the problem. Trying talking to people. I find that pretty
much _every_ woman in the tech industry who I've spoken to has at least one
example of how they feel they've been discriminated against at some point.

~~~
dylanjermiah
What you have just stated is a huge problem. To accept that there's a problem
without even asking for data, or even worse dismissing someone for wanting to
make a decision based on data is an unproductive method to solve a problem.

It's shooting in the dark.

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honest_joe
This is getting more and more hilarous FFS. Will we have a special group for
afroamerican women programmers ? Special group for mentally ill programmers ?
Or what about vegan transgender programmers ? This kind of positive
discrimination is really annoying and unfair. Using the right tool and right
people should be free of all prejudices FFS

~~~
manux
As much as I dislike positive discrimination, I view it as a necessary evil.

In the specific case of women in CS/CE, I think it's fair to say that the lack
of women is rather troubling, and has roots in prejudice. So yeah, who knows.
Maybe recognizing the success of women in this field might help restore some
balance and one day make this positive discrimination unecessary. Then we
won't need any special terms and all programmers will be called programmers.

~~~
dylanjermiah
> restore some balance and one day make this positive discrimination
> unecessary. Then we won't need any special terms and all programmers will be
> called programmers.

How do you define 'balance' in this scenario?

