

Women in Computing: The Night I was the Belle of the Ball - rachellaw
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/the-night-i-was-the-belle-of-the-ball-1542539449/@burtreynoldsismyspiritguide1

======
Mz
Excerpt: _Instead, I get guys who deny that I can be smart or capable; guys
who like how smart I am but try to get me fired if I won 't go out with them_

I think that is likely the essence of The Glass Ceiling. And it sucks.

------
vezzy-fnord
[referring to Assembly] _I told him that couldn 't be true because it's not
even human readable._

Not sure if this is meant to be a joke. If not, what? I mean, perhaps you
could say that for your compiler output, but otherwise...?

Otherwise, I sympathized with her story, although the rather tired "Where did
all the good men go?" ending wasn't particularly apt. Still, this _is_ a
Jezebel story. For the penultimate postmodern feminist trash rag, it isn't
that bad.

~~~
sounds
I'm not sure how to respond to the Assembly nitpick but if Jezebel wants to
post this article, it's fine with me.

(Just because an online publication frequently publishes stuff I don't read
does not imply that I should not read the one good one they publish.)

Further, what's wrong with feminism?

~~~
johnbm
Claiming to be about equality while advocating for privileged treatment for
years. Like NOW opposing default shared custody, pushing the lie that domestic
violence is overwhelmingly men hitting women, denying men support and
services, promoting the moral panic of "rape culture" at colleges, giving
mothers choice while denying fathers any say (under the guise of "the child's
interests"), ... It's a self contradictory ideology that claims women are
equal and that's why they have no agency, cannot be held responsible for their
actions and need hand outs.

"1 in 4 women is raped" was a fabrication by Mary Koss. "Only 2% of all rape
accusations are false" was an anecdote from a Susan Brownmiller book.

~~~
MichaelDickens
On rape accusations: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-
and-so...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-and-social-
media-part-5-of-%E2%88%9E/)

TLDR: About 20% (with a wide margin of error) of rape accusations are false.

> "1 in 4 women is raped" was a fabrication by Mary Koss.

Not entirely. According to a CDC report
([http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a...](http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a.pdf)),
1 in 3 women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an
intimate partner. That said, some have criticized this report for taking too
broad a definition, e.g. ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cdc-study-
on-sexual-v...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cdc-study-on-sexual-
violence-in-the-us-overstates-the-problem/2012/01/25/gIQAHRKPWQ_story.html)).

~~~
jarrett
> TLDR: About 20% (with a wide margin of error) of rape accusations are false.

That's not an accurate summary of the linked article's conclusions. It makes
no _conclusion_ about the percentage of accusations that are false. Rather, it
takes as a seemingly arbitrary _premise_ that 8% of accusations are false.
From the article:

> Lisak lists seven studies he considers credible, which find false accusation
> rates of 2.1%, 2.5%, 3.0%, 5.9%, 6.8%, 8.3%, 10.3%, 10.9%....We will stick
> with the article’s figure of 84,000 reported rapes per year and 8% false
> accusation rate, for a total of 6,750 falsely accused.

The article's conclusion is actually about the chance that any particular man
will be falsely accused in his lifetime. I can't say whether that particular
conclusion is accurate. I can only observe that it is meaningless unless one
accepts the 8% assumption. Which is rather suspect, considering it appears to
have been cherry-picked from amongst the seven studies the author referenced.

~~~
MichaelDickens
Ah, thanks for the correction. I haven't read the article in a while and I
just glanced back through it.

> Which is rather suspect, considering it appears to have been cherry-picked
> from amongst the seven studies the author referenced.

It's near the middle of the range, though (a bit on the high end), so it seems
like a reasonable assumption.

------
peterwwillis
So, to begin to explain how those sweet guys from the dance turned into the
guys you're meeting now:

    
    
      Instead, I get guys who deny that I can be smart or capable
    

They probably have had no exposure to intelligent women, or women who code.
They've built up a stereotype in their head and your mere existence is putting
it into question, so they go into denial.

    
    
      guys who like how smart I am but try to get me fired if I won't go out with them
    

Manipulative and insecure? Psychological issues with women, probably preying
on any women they meet.

    
    
      guys who refuse to interview me for jobs that I'm overqualified for and push me towards jobs that are more typical for women
    

I'm not sure what jobs are typical for women, but i've seen a lot of men
pushed away from jobs if they're overqualified, for a number of reasons.
Still, if this was just sexism at work, it points to more insecurity or lack
of exposure to smart women who code.

    
    
      guys who dangle new language carrots in front of me until a guy comes along to give it to
    

I don't know what this means?

    
    
      guys who make it clear in my interviews that they felt that they needed to interview at least one woman
    

Oh, heh, that's a fun one. It works well on women because discriminating
against women isn't as stigmatized as discriminating against black people.

    
    
      guys who test me on my video game knowledge in interviews
    

This could be just to tell how much of a nerd/geek you are. Could work in your
favor if you show them how passionate you are about technology or having fun?

    
    
      guys who call me a fake geek girl
    

Back to the first example, probably had no exposure to women who were smart or
coded, and react to their stereotypes coming into question by shielding
themselves in denial.

    
    
      guys who tell me that I shouldn't be allowed to wear that shirt with that famous programmer who knows who I am
    

Again an example of the fake-geek-girl-denial. Or just someone who hates that
famous programmer? (I would probably pay someone to burn their RMS or ESR
t-shirt, unless they were being ironic)

    
    
      guys telling me that it's impossible for me to be a nerd because I didn't pay my dues by being friendless except for my D&D buddies
    

Oh, how the jaded lonely nerd doth protest too much! Male nerds that have
style or lots of sexual partners or some other qualification of "a cool person
with friends" get the same shit, but you probably get the extra burden of
expectation of gender roles, in that women are expected to socialize more
freely than men.

Honestly, I don't get the draw of the typical "nerdy guy". They're kind of a
pile of social and emotional problems and focus too much on one kind of hobby
versus expanding their horizons. And they look like slobs. Why not find
yourself a nice surfer with tattoos who writes poetry?

~~~
MichaelDickens
> This could be just to tell how much of a nerd/geek you are. Could work in
> your favor if you show them how passionate you are about technology or
> having fun?

But I think this is the sort of thing on which a lot of men give women
particularly harsh scrutiny. Like what you said before, a lot of men have a
stereotype that women aren't interested in X, so if they meet a woman who is
supposedly interested in X, they grill her extra hard on it; where as if it
were a man, they would just accept that he's interested.

