
Learning to Code as a Woman Changed My Life - apianoplaya
https://www.glamour.com/story/i-am-a-woman-who-learned-to-code-and-it-changed-my-life
======
ralusek
"But telling groups of marginalized peoples (like women and especially women
of color), against whom the societal cards are already very much stacked, that
simply 'believing in themselves' is the secret to getting what they want out
of life is not only preposterous, it’s disingenuous, it’s poisonous—you could
go so far as to call it traitorous. This type of thinking implies that the
problem lies within us, the marginalized, the oppressed, within our attitudes,
and not the fault of the inherently sexist, racist, and classist society we
must struggle to thrive within."

I absolutely abhor this line of reasoning. The solution to the author's
problem quite literally DID lie within herself, and the self-actualization was
something she was entirely in control of. The article is literally about how
her own perception of what it meant to be an engineer prior to learning to
code was what was ultimately holding her back, and not any actual external
variables. What is even more insane is if you give consideration to the
resources/events she explicitly mentions which are set up specifically to
encourage women to code, it makes that line of reasoning even more infuriating
to me.

EDIT: And on another note: I have worked with exactly 8x more "women of color"
than I have with white women, because in India and Pakistan, women are
substantially more likely to go into software engineering. I feel like I'm
taking crazy pills when I read things like this.

~~~
supreme_sublime
She also mentions "exposure", but people are exposed to software all the time.
My interest started with being curious of how things were built and how I
could do so myself. I didn't know anyone who was a coder either. I got lucky
and found someone who was willing to help teach me web development, but I
learned a lot of basic concepts and had written scripts on my own.

I knew I was interested in building things that made people's lives better.
Maybe it was implicit but I never thought "I've seen white guys on TV coding,
so I can do it!" My parents actively discouraged me from spending time on the
computer and worked against me to do so. My friends would make fun of me when
I'd show them a little thing I made. I had essentially no encouragement until
I actually got a job doing it, but I had spent hundreds (if not thousands) of
hours on it before that point.

I have no problem with women being programmers, I work with a few on a daily
basis. Women in the west have tremendous choice in how they want to live their
lives. Your examples of India and Pakistan just illustrates that point. Women
are fully capable, but how many would still have gone into programming if it
weren't economically necessary for them to do so? The simple truth is, most
women simply aren't interested in it. That's okay too, people should stop
trying to impose how they would like the world to be. Recognize how it is and
work inside those parameters.

All that said, I definitely appreciate the proactive approach with all the
linked resources. I see way too many "women in tech" articles that say we
should encourage women, and don't do something so basic as helping give women
(or anyone for that matter) a starting point. I'll probably bookmark this
article and send those links to people when they tell me they are potentially
interested in learning.

------
las2221
"No one had told them—no one was telling them—that coding is one of the few
careers that can take you truly extraordinary places without extraordinary
experience. That it is one of the few highly prestigious and well-paid careers
that you can teach yourself entirely online and with nearly no financial
resources. That you can be a programmer without a college degree and you can
start learning to code when you’re 5 or 25 or 75—there is never a time that’s
too early or too late."

CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP! As a woman who got into this career late-ish, this is
exactly how I feel. People underestimate the power of expectations,
stereotypes, whatever you want to call them - in shaping the types of careers
people consider options for them. When I tell other smart, hardworking,
technologically-inclined women that they, too, could learn to code, they look
at me like I have three heads.

------
megkadams
Author here (waves). Have to agree with you on title, it's a bit rough and was
unfortunately assigned to me. Thank you so much for reading, all, and for
comments!

~~~
j45
Thanks for writing this. Every word.

I don't know of anyone's story that is perfect or perfectly told, the
attention to the title and relevancy of this article seems a little
bikeshedding to me.

This piece was uplifting and inspiring, but maybe not for some of the audience
on hn as the demographic is shifting to a group that have had access to
technology from an early age and don't know it as a priveledge. It's not their
fault either, we're all products to some degree of our environment and
upbringing.

I liked that this piece presents software engineering as a possibility for
those who may have not known or considered it.

I was lucky to discover computers at a young age, but didn't have one of my
own for a long while. Cue the imaginitive use of computer through reading
books from the public library, and imagining my time at the computer.
Ironically, a delay in getting a computer ended up giving me an unusual
ability to step through code and processes mentally.

I can only imagine how my life would have turned out if i wasn't able to make
tech accessible through hard work.

A message like this reaching every little boy and girl is not a wasted effort.

While not everyone will be a software engineer, or be one out of passion, some
will gladly pursue it to improve the course of their and their family's
future.

I read having a career to improve quality of life usually comes a generation
before picking one for passion, and all parents who were once young people
often gave up their passion, opportunity or education to survive and give
their kids a chance.

~~~
megkadams
So moved by this. Thank you for reading.

------
romwell
I wish the title was different.

The article offers a no-bullshit list of resources that could help someone get
started in software engineering. Most of the people here won't need it for
themselves, but it's helpful to have such a list to give to the people who
need it (even PhD scientists often have too little exposure to coding, and
need to get started somewhere!).

~~~
jpatokal
The title is focused on the author's point is that it's a viable career path
even for people who didn't think it would be one, including herself.

~~~
romwell
True, but appending "..and here are the resources that helped" would describe
it even better.

~~~
j45
A list of resources would be hard to exactly recall and become outdated.

It's more about the idea that resources are available and to heres a starting
point to find your own.

------
tgamba
I see a lot of comments by privileged straight males on here. As usual, you
just don't get it; you have not spent one second trying to put yourself in
another's shoes.

I am a gay man who has been in the internet industry since 1996. From my long
experience, about 50% of coders are macho, taciturn, unhelpful frat bros who
make anyone who is not a member of their boys club most unwelcome.

My career (and surely the career of the article writer and anyone else who is
not a bro) came as a result of the other 50%, talented, generous men and women
whose shared their expertise and encouraged me. I certainly did not pull
myself up by my own bootstraps; without that assistance I would not be where I
am today, which is team lead.

So for those who "abhor" the argument laid out in this article, for once, for
just once, SHUT UP, LISTEN to what is being said, and consider how it you
might be a carrier of the "racist, sexist and classist" attitudes being called
out.

~~~
crimsonalucard
>From my long experience, about 50% of coders are macho, taciturn, unhelpful
frat bros who make anyone who is not a member of their boys club most
unwelcome.

I think this is partly because your gay. A lot of gay people have a sort of
lisp and effeminate manner that advertises their sexuality and many straight
men can notice this. It's not that the straight men are trying to
discriminate, but their is a certain level of subconscious discomfort that
will make it much harder (not impossible) for you to be one of the boys.

Of course not all men are like this, and it's possible for men who are like
this to get over it. Please keep in mind though, I doubt that there's a
deliberate action to exclude you... It's similar to how an 80 year old man is
excluded from hanging out with teenage high school girls. It's not deliberate,
you just don't fit in by your nature.

~~~
menacingly
I'm going to assume that this post is coming from a place of social ineptitude
and not malice, but just about everything you've said is insensitive, over-
generalizing, frowned-upon, and kind of just untrue.

Honestly, I'm perhaps one of the least "progressive" people in this community,
and I think it's pretty uninformed to think your comment is going to be
helpful or describes an OK way to behave.

~~~
crimsonalucard
I'm fully aware that it's frowned upon. There is definitely no malice
intended. Perhaps there is a bit of social ineptitude, but this is the
internet.

Let's put it this way. What I said is a generalization, and I framed it as a
generalization. In no way did I say it applies to all people. But
generalizations illustrate fuzzy truths that are as the adjective aptly
states: general.

The parent poster also said something very general. He said that, and I quote:
"50% of coders are macho, taciturn, unhelpful frat bros who make anyone who is
not a member of their boys club most unwelcome."

There are two ways I could interpret what he said. I could say what the
typical millennial would say when he/she encounters anything slightly
sexist/racist and tell him that just about everything he said is insensitive,
over-generalizing, frowned-upon, and kind of just untrue.

Or I can see things from his perspective and realize that although he is
stereotyping, he is definitely illustrating a generality that is a fuzzy
aspect of the truth. As a straight male myself perhaps I can say something to
help him see things from a straight males' perspective. Of course I would be
giving him another generality but a fuzzy truth is still a type of truth.

I want to change what it means to be progressive. The reality of this world is
that things are rarely ever fair, but the meaning of "progressive" has become
twisted in recent decades. Progressive has come to mean not only treating all
people equally, but to state that all races, sexes and people are equal in
mental and physical ability. This is not true. European people are taller,
asians are shorter... what black magic enforces the attribute that while
physical qualities may be extremely different for all peoples, intelligence
remains identical across racial boundaries?

This is not a pretty picture but to say that all are equal is to deny reality.
Can we be progressive without denying reality?

Take the following stereotype, for example: Men are generally physically
stronger then women and thus better suited for jobs that require more physical
strength.

I've literally met "progressive" people who deny this reality. This is
borderline insanity in the name of progressiveness. We've gone too far.

I support progressiveness, I support equality in judgement and treatment, but
I cannot deny and I cannot unsee the reality of the unbalanced universe we
live in.

I want to mention that I have had one instance in my life, being a straight
male where I have become bros with a gay male. From my perspective we were
just bros, his perspective was different. But that is besides the point. I
just want to say that I am in a good position to sympathize with both the
stereotypical "macho straight male" and the gay male, so it is of my opinion
that it would be highly unwise for the parent poster to dismiss what I say too
quickly.

~~~
menacingly
Your initial post made me worry that someone with perhaps an empathy disorder
was about to see a small mob gathering outside their home.

I wish you had expanded originally, because I totally agree that GP made a
similarly unfair generalization.

In fact, I often wonder why it's constantly reiterated that I could never ever
understand the experiences of an "out" group, but those groups regularly
purport to understand mine.

~~~
crimsonalucard
>I wish you had expanded originally, because I totally agree that GP made a
similarly unfair generalization.

I don't think you fully understood what I'm saying. I don't believe the GP's
generalization was unfair. I believe he made a very accurate generalization. I
believe his generalization is just about as accurate as my generalization. I'm
just explaining the reasoning behind what he is observing and letting him know
that it is not the result of intentional discrimination.

~~~
menacingly
I felt as a I typed it that "unfair" wasn't the word I was looking for, but
that's about all the investment I made in it. Something like "rounding error
taken in aggregate", but your wording clarifies well.

Honestly, I don't bump into the 90s sitcom gay guy much, so that strikes me as
inaccurate first, but I also don't have much experience with these infamous
bros to know how wrong that is either.

Now I'm wondering if my inability to see these bros makes me likely to be one,
like a trout thinking "what fish, dude? all I see are my friends"

------
j45
For those who started self-taught, this hits home..

"it is one of the few highly prestigious and well-paid careers that you can
teach yourself entirely online and with nearly no financial resources."

------
DoreenMichele
So, zero info on how coding changed her life. Lots of trash talk about the
inspirational seminar she attended. A few blurbs about where to start if you
want to learn to code.

Not a great article. I'm a woman. Learning to code is still on my To Do list.
I am not feeling all inspired to get cracking on it after reading this
unfocused piece of writing.

------
jpatokal
If you're curious about the mentioned path of happy accidents, you can glean
most of it from the author's LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-
adams-644b4451/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-adams-644b4451/)

TL;DR: Arts degree with a CS minor (?) -> Digital content producer -> front-
end dev -> now engineering manager at Conde Nast (not coincidentally, the
publisher of Glamour).

------
partycoder
I don't think the title is representative of the article.

I will try to list the different themes of the article:

1) The author being a woman

2) The author coming from a background with low exposure to programming,
making it an unpopular career choice, and not a relevant subject in school.

3) The author did not pursue a higher education program involving programming.

The article focuses more on 2) and 3) rather than 1), which is the title.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't think the title is representative of the article.

I think the article does an excellent job of communicating why the article
should be of interest to the audience _Glamour_ targets.

Which is, after all, the whole point of a headline.

------
nanodano
Why is being a woman so important it is part of the title? Do women have a
harder time learning? Is it a bigger accomplishment when a woman does it? Are
people more fascinated by the fact that a _woman_ was able to code? I know,
whenever I hear that a woman learned to code, I immediately think 'holy cow!
no way! I wouldn't have cared if a man learned to code, but this was a woman.
I better read this article.'

Do titles like this make girls feel empowered or does it make them feel like
only super-women can program because if a woman learns to program, it is
worthy of magazine article. If I was a young girl and I saw articles like 'I'm
a woman, and I learned to program!' I'd probably feel like 'geez, it really
takes a lot of work for a woman to be a programmer and it is so rare that
whenever it happens they write articles about it.'

~~~
jjeaff
Only 10 to 20% of programmers are women. Doesn't that justify the mention?

~~~
nanodano
Less than 10% of nurses are men. Is it worth writing an article when a man
becomes a nurse?

~~~
dragonwriter
It's certainly worth writing an article about men's positive experiences
entering nursing in venues targeting a male audience to help overcome cultural
biases that seeking to enter nursing is not an appropriate and rewarding
experience for men, yes.

------
candiodari
> But telling groups of marginalized peoples (like women and especially women
> of color), against whom the societal cards are already very much stacked,
> that simply “believing in themselves” is the secret to getting what they
> want out of life is not only preposterous, it’s disingenuous, it’s
> poisonous—you could go so far as to call it traitorous. This type of
> thinking implies that the problem lies within us, the marginalized, the
> oppressed, within our attitudes, and not the fault of the inherently sexist,
> racist, and classist society we must struggle to thrive within.

So the reason that just telling (in this case) women to believe in themselves
doesn't make them millionaires (read the rest of the article) is the fault of
society, and must mean that society is classist, sexist, racist ?

I mean if that's the reasoning, then yes. Absolutely.

It pains me to read stuff like this, because there is no shortage of
immigrants, significant numbers of them women, try their hand at a business in
the center of the city. Some succeed, a lot fail. It is hard to read articles
like this because unlike the author of this article (and even she is a
standout among the people she describes), they spent years trying, with most
of that time working for below minimum wage. The author of this article, I get
the distinct impression has a level of effort measured in weeks, maybe months.

According to the author, the reason that just starting out and competing with
very little effort against people who spend years of, not 9-to-5, but 7am-
to-9pm days working at a business, the reason that that fails ... is that
society is racist. And when it comes to coding, most people actually worked
for 4+ years, something like 6-8 hours per day constantly, with very
significant upticks in that during exams. The reason you can't best them after
one "self-actualization" seminar, clearly, is racism and sexism.

No.

It isn't.

And yes, there are plenty of locals that "succeed" (to some extent) despite
being morons. That's the same everywhere (seen it in at least 9 big cities
around the world now, one of which was not first world, the rich being brown
skinned (poor too of course) and it was much worse of a rich-poor divide than
any western city I've ever seen). And it's not fair that that doesn't apply to
you. But it doesn't apply to 90% of people, and probably doesn't apply to 99%
of immigrants, and women of color, and ... and that's not fair. Very unfair.
Very.

It cannot be fixed by making the world less racist.

------
crimsonalucard
As a man, learning to code also changed my life. Would anyone like to read
about my story and my perspective as a man?

~~~
jjeaff
Probably not, since being a male programmer is hardly unique in any way.
Probably should pick a different angle for your story.

