
Coding Like a Girl - aarestad
https://medium.com/@sailorhg/coding-like-a-girl-595b90791cce?source=email-2bdd02cf5da2-1425730391921-daily_digest
======
mgkimsal
A few random thoughts...

"Who are you here with?" _might_ be indicating... what company are you here
with? Are you with Google, or MS, or... whatever. "Who do you work for?" might
be more appropriately direct.

I have a pink macbook. I wear pink headphones. You wouldn't believe the number
of weird/sexist comments I get from time to time. Or maybe you would.

There was a piece floating around a couple weeks ago about women in tech
leaving because they felt bullied out because they were women. While I don't
doubt that can happen, the 'bullying' that was described in that article has
happened to me - a male - at companies as well. It's more cliquish asshole
group/hivemind behavior than it is sexist. I had multiple people chastise me
that I was part of the problem because I was too blind to see it as sexism,
and of course a male would simply ascribe this to asshole/politics in a
company, vs sexism. Even though the _exact_ same behavior (and outcomes) had
been leveled at me, a male, apparently if the same behavior happens to a
female, the motivation/intention _must_ be sexism and dealt with through that
filter.

~~~
rfrey
I'm sure the asshat behaviour you describe affected you as much as any
individual woman is affected by similar behaviour. I know (in the abstract
sense) the people you're describing and they make me mad.

That said, if the kind of behaviour you're describing affects women much more
than men, can we still say there's sexism at work? Say I pull some statistics
out of thin air: say 1 of 20 men get harassed like you describe, but 1 of 3
women experience it. Can we say there's sexism? If there is, can we address it
or try?

You can say that women don't experience it more than men (that would be a
surprising claim that would contradict a lot of evidence to the contrary, but
it would be a valid criticism). Or you could say that they don't experience it
to such a greater degree that justifies special attention. But I don't think
it's a strong argument to say that men experience ass-hattery, therefore none
of the ass-hattery directed at women is based on sexism.

(Edit: I don't mean to say the above arguments are _your_ arguments - just
that they would be legitimate arguments.)

~~~
mgkimsal
How do you define "affects women more than men"? More women are affected by
it? Women are affected by is disproportionately, as a percentage of their
office population? Some other measure?

Ahhh - you're talking about proportionality.

I'm still not sure, but would need to see concrete examples. The particular
article I'd read, the 'examples' were "I wasn't promoted", "I felt bullied"
and "my ideas weren't taken seriously". How about we just root out that sort
of workplace psychopathy altogether, vs trying to have it affect fewer women?

FWIW, when I've seen that sort of psychopathy in person, it's been rather
indiscriminate. The only reason it might have affected more women
disproportionately is that there were fewer women to affect in the first
place. 50% of women being affected vs 10% of men affected is somewhat leading
statistic, when you realize that there are only 8 women but 40 men - same
number of people are affected.

~~~
xorcist
The difference is between "what an asshat" and "I don't seem to belong".

------
spiffyman
I posted this on FB last night and had quite a discussion ensue. I really like
what the author has to say about assumptions. As a user group and conference
organizer, time and time again I have seen men approach feminine people in the
crowd with these just terribly naïve prejudices. "Oh, you must be a junior
dev." Or "Who are you here with?" We men should absolutely try to set these
poor assumptions aside -- if not for better equality (although why not?), then
because of the awkwardness that ensues when someone says "No, actually I'm
giving the keynote" or "Yeah, I co-wrote that book." If you don't want to look
like an idiot on the regular, don't go around the world thinking every
competent person looks/acts/dresses/talks the way you do.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Reminds me of how when a female singer produces her own music and has limited
assistance from a man, reviewers attribute the entire thing to the man:

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/21/bjork_pitchfo...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/21/bjork_pitchfork_interview_she_s_tired_of_not_getting_credit_for_her_music.html)

It's not even some malicious, deliberate assumption. People have been raised
to expect that it is men who do the "real work", and pass over women without
thinking about it.

~~~
JDiculous
Can someone explain to me why this is so horrific? When 95+% of music
producers are male, of course men are going to assume that you're not a
producer if you're female. When 90+% of developers are men, of course men are
going to assume you're not a developer if you're a female. If I saw an
extremely tall, handsome, well-dressed, and sociable man at a tech conference,
I wouldn't take him to be a developer either. If you're a short white guy at
an NBA event, people are going to assume you're not a pro basketball player.
I'd imagine that the same thing holds true for men in female-dominated fields.

Whenever there's a tiny minority, people will make assumptions. As long as
you're not overly zealous about your assumptions and willing to admit that
you're wrong when told so, I don't see the problem. Realistically, there's
nothing that will ever prevent people from making assumptions until the tiny
minority stops being such a minority.

~~~
zeendo
Forget the connotation 'horrific'.

Are you asking why we should work to stop this behavior?

Pardon me for assuming but here are my thoughts -

Because it's literally systematically oppressive. This behavior makes an
entire gender less likely to participate in our field. That's bad for the
gender and it's bad for the field.

Isn't that enough reason to work to fix it?

So what if there are non-malicious explanations for an individual to behave
this way....that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop it.

~~~
JDiculous
I'm saying that it's impossible to fix. If you're a short white guy, people
will always initially assume that you're not a pro basketball player.

Again, as long as you're not overly zealous about your assumptions and willing
to accept when they're wrong, it's not discrimination or "systematic
oppression". Feminists try to turn this into a gender war, but it's really
not. It's the circumstance of any minority in any heavily majority-dominated
field.

~~~
rfrey
Being short is a natural impediment to playing professional basketball.

Being female is not a natural impediment to programming. So, even if you're
correct that gender assumptions are valid (and apparently OK) because of the
prevailing gender makeup, it is not impossible to fix - you fix it by changing
the prevailing gender makeup. (I don't agree with that assumption, but let's
grant it for the sake of exploring the other point.)

If part of the reason for the prevailing gender split is the attitudes that
are caused by the prevailing gender split, then sure, you have a chicken-and-
egg problem. But it's far from impossible. You can, for example, change one
half of the equation by social expectation manipulation. Or change the other
half by affirmative action measures. You may think the cost is greater than
the benefit, but it's not impossible.

~~~
lmz
> Being short is a natural impediment to playing professional basketball.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggsy_Bogues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggsy_Bogues)

~~~
dkuntz2
Impediment doesn't mean you can't work around it, it just means it's more
difficult.

------
logic404
_A couple years ago she attended a technical conference and on the first day,
she wore a dress...wore a nerdy t-shirt and jeans instead, and she had a
better experience that day. People assumed she was technical and didn’t dilute
their explanations to her_

I'm not sure this really makes the case that its sexism at play. For example,
if a guy wore a suit and tie to a conference, people might assume he's not a
programmer.

Isn't this anecdote evidence that its the clothes, not the gender?

~~~
c22
Yeah, I don't get it. She keeps saying she's "presenting" as feminine and then
complaining that people are basing their assumptions on how she presents
herself. If more programmers wear pretty dresses maybe that look will become
stereotypical of programming, but it hasn't historically been the case. If I
show up at a tech conference presenting as a wrestler I might be displaying
all sorts of macho manly cues but I stil wouldn't expect to be taken seriously
without extra effort.

~~~
stephenboyd
"If more programmers wear pretty dresses maybe that look will become
stereotypical of programming, but it hasn't historically been the case"

She makes the same claim, but instead of accepting that she has to conform to
style norms set by the opposite gender, she's trying to encourage more
programmers to wear dresses and such, which should be perfectly respectable
for a programmer at a conference.

~~~
c22
I think there are dresses that would not garner this response. Wearing
lingerie would be another way to present oneself as feminine, but I think even
the author would reject this as inappropriate attire for a tech conference.

~~~
stephenboyd
Please tell us more about the dresses that would not garner this response and
how they are different from what she wore.

~~~
c22
Somewhere down in this thread bhayden posted this link:

[http://dressforweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Korean-
ver...](http://dressforweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Korean-version-of-
the-2013-summer-dress-with-belt-buckle-short-sleeved-plus-size-casual-
dress.jpg)

I can't speak for everyone, but something like this seems totally appropriate
for the occasion and would not cause me to make any knee jerk assumption.

Obviously neither of us know exactly what the author was wearing since it
isn't mentioned in the article, but this quote leads me to believe she may not
have been exercising the most restrained judgement in this area:

"Once an ex-partner told me “You look better in jeans and a tshirt. Why do you
wear dresses? Why do you wear make up? You don’t have to dress up to impress
me.” That moment led me to so many realizations. It made me realize that most
people think femininity is an act to impress men. It was then that I was 100%
sure my dressing up wasn’t for him at all, I didn’t at all care if a partner
disliked my dresses, or makeup. I was wearing them for me. And it was then,
that I realized that continuing to wearing dresses just for myself was a
totally valid way to say a big FUCK YOU to the patriarchy."

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to deny that sexism exists in this
industry or the world. I think people should be able to wear whatever they
want wherever they like, but the pragmatist in me thinks some of the
responsibility for these issues would be easier solved by the individual than
by expecting everyone else to modify their behavior.

~~~
stephenboyd
Here's the author speaking at a programming conference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6071MRIzCA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6071MRIzCA)

As you can see, she is appropriately attired.

------
thomasmarcelis
One thing I don't agree with, how is the following feedback gender-specific?:

“Why are your slides so pink? It’s very distracting.”

“Stop pushing your hair behind your ear when you present. It’s very
distracting.”

“Your voice goes up after every sentence you say.”

I feel like this is all valid feedback. Back in university we would also get
feedback on our behaviour during our presentations or the look of our slides.

~~~
skj
Especially with the vocal comment, many people get annoyed with female voices
when they're in a supposedly serious context. But the thing is that it's not
actually some fundamentally annoying or distracting quality of the voice- it's
that it's different from what they expect: a male voice.

"This American Life" had a great segment about this, targeting "vocal fry" in
particular: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/545/i...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-
caps?act=2#play)

~~~
mgkimsal
Voices going up - as in, asking a question(?) - is annoying whether it's a
female voice or male voice.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's a feature heavily associated with female voices. So it is discrimination
against female voices.

It's also not something people do consciously, it is a feature of dialect. And
studies show that why people dislike a dialect has nothing to do with its
actual aural qualities, and everything to do with its _social status_.

~~~
JDiculous
Are you serious? Just because it's more common with females doesn't make it
discrimination. Just because poor black people are more likely to commit
crimes doesn't mean that criticizing criminals makes you racist and classist.
Come on now, this is basic logic.

~~~
foldr
I think the point is that it's something which tends to be more common with
females for various non-accidental reasons. E.g. because they need to lower
their voices to be perceived as less feminine and more masculine and
authoritative. So it would be a bit like criticizing black guys for keeping
their hair very short, when the reason for this might be that longer hair
styles on black guys are usually perceived negatively. (That may not be a
particularly realistic example; it's only intended hypothetically.)

------
grey-area
_Assume people are as or more qualified than you._

I think this is a great rule to apply to your dealings with anyone of whatever
appearance or gender - often our assumptions about people are wildly
inaccurate (and we make hundreds before they've opened their mouth, and lots
more after the first sentence). If they're not more qualified, they'll make it
clear, and if they are more qualified/intelligent, maybe you'll learn
something from them. You should always be prepared to learn from someone
whoever they are, and never make assumptions about them based on gender,
appearance, culture etc. it's not only rude, it's just ignorance. It is
important to note though that just because this is a problem everyone faces in
some small way on either side of interactions every day, it's one which women
face to a radically different degree.

I recently had someone at work criticise a page as _too girly_ to our team
including women. The same thing has happened to women I know who are doctors,
architects and lawyers - competence is questioned or undervalued simply
because they're a woman. It's hard to know where to start in responding to
comments like that, and it's still happening in 2015, so I find this
#likeagirl campaign justified and timely. It's time for people to speak out
whenever they see this sort of prejudice masked as concern or advice, and stop
making the workplace such a hostile environment for women. I'd love to think
that by the time my daughter grows up we'll be over this sort of thing.

It is really disturbing the number of dismissive and hostile comments we see
on posts about women on HN. Most stories on this topic devolve into flamewars
or at best are littered with negative responses saying this is a problem
everyone faces or it's not really a problem at all. Good articles like this
reporting personal experience widely shared deserve better. How can we change
that?

~~~
ghufran_syed
In my experience recently in medicine (as a man), I've never noticed other
doctors assuming lack of competence in female doctors, but did have female
colleagues describe constantly being described as 'the nurse' by patients,
usually by the oldest patients (who of course spent most of their life in a
world where doctor=man, nurse=woman). Women's experiences of sexism and
bigotry from male doctors when trying to 'break into' medicine over the last
50 years were pretty miserable on all accounts, but it feels to me like once
the numbers of women in senior positions was high enough, the sexism pretty
much went away: it's pretty hard to assume 'women don't know anything' when
you've gone from utter ignorance as a medical student and junior resident to
actually being good at what you do based on training and supervision from
awesome female and male doctors in roughly equal numbers.

With regards to 'Assume people are as or more qualified than you', I think
this is just basic courtesy. If there is no way of 'knowing' someone's
knowledge or status eg by rank insignia, it always safer and much better
received if you make a conscious effort to be wrong..in the right direction ie
in the direction of more knowledge / status /experience. People are happy to
correct you, but are often flattered: 'Are you the founder?'..'No, I'm
actually the intern' , or 'are you the attending physician?'..,'No, I'm a med
student' ends up being a much nicer interaction for all concerned than if you
ask it the other way around, while still fulfilling the need to exchange
useful information.

~~~
grey-area
Yes mostly assumptions would be made by patients or other professionals they
interact with, not other doctors.

------
andrewl
Richard Hamming discusses clothing, presentation, and the cost of not
conforming to expectations in _You and Your Research_.[1]. It's not exactly
analogous to what's described in the article, but related:

 _John Tukey almost always dressed very casually. He would go into an
important office and it would take a long time before the other fellow
realized that this is a first-class man and he had better listen.For a long
time John has had to overcome this kind of hostility. It 's wasted effort!_

There are several paragraphs in that section, all worth reading (as is the
entire essay).

[1]
[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

~~~
shawndumas
"You should dress according to the expectations of the audience spoken to. If
I am going to give an address at the MIT computer center, I dress with a bolo
and an old corduroy jacket or something else. I know enough not to let my
clothes, my appearance, my manners get in the way of what I care about. An
enormous number of scientists feel they must assert their ego and do their
thing their way. They have got to be able to do this, that, or the other
thing, and they pay a steady price.

John Tukey almost always dressed very casually. He would go into an important
office and it would take a long time before the other fellow realized that
this is a first-class man and he had better listen. For a long time John has
had to overcome this kind of hostility. It's wasted effort! I didn't say you
should conform; I said ``The appearance of conforming gets you a long way.''
If you chose to assert your ego in any number of ways, ``I am going to do it
my way,'' you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your
professional career. And this, over a whole lifetime, adds up to an enormous
amount of needless trouble."

~~~
graycat
Gee, apparently it helps that I never saw Tukey, at least not in person! I
heard about Tukey from (1) Tukey's lemma, equivalent to the axiom of choice,
(2) convergence and uniformity in topology, (3) stepwise regression, (4) the
statistics of power spectral estimation, (5) exploratory data analysis, and
(6) the fast Fourier transform. So, with (1)-(6), I didn't pay attention to
how he looked! But when I wanted to go for a Ph.D., I wrote him at Princeton,
explained where my career had run into his work and asked if there was
education for a career in such things. I got back a nice letter from G. S.
Watson saying, "Yes" and claiming that Princeton was one of the best places
for such work. I did apply to Princeton, and did get accepted, but I went to
Johns Hopkins instead (my wife was already in her Ph.D. program there so that
we wouldn't have to move!).

------
Bahamut
I've been thinking about this problem some today - I have some girl friends
who are talented and successful as developers, but their personas are
drastically different from many men in the field. One is shy and soft-spoken,
not aggressive at all, and she has been successful as a developer at Google
for around 10 years. Another is very smart, but also someone who hates
conflict. Both of these share a lot of interests in games & their music (one
is in a video game music cover band that has performed at numerous conventions
& concerts). They both are very much against brogrammer culture.

I think this article has some excellent advice - we should be considering what
men & women say purely on merit, not who is most tireless in arguing a point,
or emotional over a perspective - exploring the depths of what each person is
suggesting is important. For those on the opposite end of a result, we need to
show empathy towards them - they are still our co-workers. Otherwise, we are
not putting them in the position to succeed, and are putting undue burden on
other people's lives that often are not accounted for in performance reviews.

------
tzs
> I have been a TA for weekend workshops that teach women to code. My male co-
> TA’s constantly asked me throughout the workshop how I was enjoying learning
> to program.

This one confuses me. I would expect that at these workshops all the TAs are
introduced to each other before teaching begins, and so if the male TAs are
trying to be funny, this would stop after the second one does this and is
dismissed from the event (I'm presuming that after the first one does it, she
tells him that she does not find it funny, and so the second one constitutes
harassment). This should not be happening constantly, and I'd expect word to
spread so it no longer happens at future events.

If the TAs are not introduced to each other, and are not wearing prominent
tags or something that identifies them as TAs (and the students are not
wearing anything that prominently identifies them as students), then given
that women are are very underrepresented among programmers and that women are
massively overrepresented among the students (it's a workshop to teach women
to code), then the male TAs are doing nothing wrong. TAs should be proactively
asking students if they are enjoying themselves. Note that if they first asked
if the person was a student, they would be kind of committing the "you don't
look like a programmer" offense.

I find the second case hard to believe, because I doubt these workshops would
be so huge that the TAs would not all learn who all the other TAs are when
setting up before the students arrive, so what the heck is going on?

------
polarix
Something is twisted in all these discussions of gender in tech, it really
seems like we're just going around in circles over and over again. I've never
read anything that felt like a particularly insightful explication of the
cause here.

Is it possible there's something more fundamental in society that this
phenomenon is merely a symptom of, and that the fix is not going to be
something like "just challenge yourself to detect and resist unconscious
bias"? Could there be something inherent in the structure of our framework of
social interaction that incentivizes this kind of behavior?

~~~
TACIXAT
This is actually the first gender in tech article I've really liked. A lot of
them off no solutions or advice, this one did. As for detecting and resisting
unconscious bias, I've worked hard to lessen the anger I feel day to day and
know it is possible to correct subconscious reactions.

Humans are awesome at categorizing information and making assumptions. I'm
sure the ability to recognize patterns helped us to survive up to this point,
but this skill isn't needed when having a conversation with someone. For the
majority of us, our decisions are not life and death ones, we can take the
time to disregard assumptions and learn specifics. I don't think it's the
framework of our social interactions more so than it is just us. It's
something we need to work actively to overcome.

~~~
Consultant32452
Your appearance is a form of communication. If you communicate message X to me
I'm going to respond accordingly to X until you somehow communicate you'd
prefer response Y. As soon as you do I'm happy to adapt and give you what you
want, but it's unfair to chastise me for giving you a response appropriate to
X first.

------
wyager
90% of the complaints in the article have nothing to do with gender.

Putting obnoxious pastel colors in a powerpoint is bad regardless of your
gender. Fidgeting while presenting is bad regardless of gender.

People tell me I don't look like a programmer all the time, mostly because I
hardly ever wear branded t-shirts and shorts.

------
danielmiessler
I hear and feel the frustration, but it's misplaced.

If a man shows up to a tech conference dressed like the guys from Jersey
Shore, he's going to be looked down on by everyone there. He'll be assumed to
be part of the delivery people doing setup for the booths.

If he complains that he's a programmer and that he shouldn't be judged by his
clothing, he will get mixed results.

It's true that if he turns out to be a nice guy, and a great programmer, then
people will change their opinions of him.

But the one thing we cannot do is demand that the entire world see signals
differently than they see them out on the street.

When someone dresses like the men on Jersey Shore, they do so because they are
signaling certain things. They're signaling masculine power. Strength. Sexual
prowess. Fighting ability. Etc.

Women who dress extremely femininely and girlishly are also sending signals
that literally BILLIONS of people already know how to receive.

Don't be surprised when people interpret signals the way that is most
beneficial to them in 99.9% of cases.

This is not a message that men from New Jersey or Women in general cannot be
seen as programmers. It's a message that signaling matters, and we must be
aware of what messages we're intentionally sending to others that we may need
to overcome.

~~~
rfrey
I agree with everything you said, except the conclusion (that you led with.)

The OP said she wore a dress. Not "extremely femininely and girlishly". She
wore a dress.

"But the one thing we cannot do is demand that the entire world see signals
differently than they see them out on the street."

Apparently the entire world thinks wearing a dress is a signal that one cannot
be a technical person. That's the point of the article.

~~~
danielmiessler
You missed the other cues in the article.

------
dsugarman
>One category of reactions that I receive all the time as a programmer that
presents as feminine is: No one believes I am a programmer.

To be fair, I am a guy and no one believes I am a programmer either. Going
through YC, it took maybe 3 or 4 times of pg telling me to talk to my
technical co-founder followed by me reminding him that it was me before he
caught on. In my opinion, it can be a real strength to be different. Some of
the most intelligent programmers I have ever worked with have been girls and I
have fought incredibly hard to hire them and others on to our tech team only
to be beaten by a tech giant who offer big premiums or more security when
securing a visa. I know I am not the only one in this boat.

~~~
mgkimsal
I get that from some folks too - people say "oh, you don't look like a
programmer-type". And I want to say "what does that sort of person look like?"
but I also half-know what the stereotype is. None of the folks at our
coworking spot who are in the software world fit that mold, but they all are
programmers of some stripe. It's odd - I know _very few_ programmers who fit
the traditional visual stereotype - like, fewer than 10% in my circles. Yet
it's still alive and strong...

------
pincubator
Reminds me when I was an instructor for a grad course and showed up in a very
trendy outfit to the first lecture (nothing weird or revealing, but nothing
you would often see in a campus either -- full make up, high heels, ripped
jeans etc.) and I can't forget the look in the student's faces. I was trying
to explain an algorithm on the board, and all students had a look in their
faces like "you can't possibly know about this". When the class is over and
the professor of the next class showed up, he had a grin on his face like "you
can't possibly teach a class". Fast forward to 2 weeks later, when I was
overwhelmed with the exams and didn't give a single damn anymore, I just
showed up with my sweatpants, a hoodie, and no makeup. Students were listening
the class with full focus and I was well respected. Not sure what to make out
of this..

The funny thing is: I am programming since I was 17, and spent most of my
youth in full-geeky and nerdy outfits (aka, in "programmer" style). But after
I come to my mid-20s I started to feel like "Oh, I didn't even wear a dress or
a high-heel in my entire life!!!11". That's when I started to dress like a
woman, and that's what happens :')

------
gaius
The dress story vs jeans, would apply equally to a guy in a suit and tie vs a
hoodie.

~~~
spiffyman
I don't think that's true. You _might_ get disregarded as a "business guy" if
you show up to a meetup in a suit. But it's just as likely that people will
just assume you're in financials. One of the better Python speakers I know of
shows up everywhere in a suit. But women consistently report not being taken
seriously when wearing dresses.

~~~
gaius
The key takeaway is, as soon as she dressed as a member of "the tribe"
everything was fine. So that tells me it's something other than a gender
issue.

~~~
andyroid
Yeah, either that or "the tribe" _is_ the gender issue.

------
Roboprog
I think some of this has to do with age, as well.

As the middle age father of two twenty-ish daughters, one of which is VERY
bright, and somebody with decades of work experience, I have met a number of
very bright women, and I don't think I would discriminate against female
coworkers.

However, if your peer group is twenty-something men, good luck getting them
not to think of you as a twenty-something woman as a potential mate, at least
from time to time, rather than "just another coworker". They might want to
complement your dress or appearance due to ulterior motives. Not that they
shouldn't be polite.

Please be sure not to mistake desperation for discrimination :-)

Disclaimer: some people _are_ just assholes, sorry.

------
kelukelugames
i opened this tab and today's dilbert strip at the same time.
[http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-07](http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-07)

~~~
acqq
The previous one fits much better here:

[http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-06](http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-06)

------
colund
The more people emphasize the differences between men and women the less
likely the bad stereotypes are to go away. People whine and repeat about
gender differences.

I'd prefer we all just disagree when someone says something is girly. Man up
and stand up for men and women's rights to be judged as people not gender
without whining when someone fails to do so.

------
hippich
May be this will be not very popular, but there are reasons males react this
way to females in dresses in tech conferences. I agree that we all should have
our mind more open, but by the age of ~25 we all got our stereotypes in our
heads based on our family, sitcoms/movies, radios, school/friends, etc.

This is no different from assumptions based on race, age, or sexual
preferences. Assumptions, wrong or right, are the way our mind
optimize/systemize knowledge, and removing all assumptions whatsoever - I
don't think it is good idea (if it would be possible.) I am afraid, there is
no quick hack and culturally we as a whole should steer our perception. This
is hard work which will take time.

------
graycat
Three points that seem to say that the girls/women should do well in
_information technology_ :

(1) Advantages.

As I recall from K-12, college, and more, in several respects of _talent_ ,
_interest_ , _diligence_ , _psychology_ , _socialization_ , etc., the
girls/women ( _girls_ here and below) are, on average, significantly better
than the boys/men ( _boys_ here and below). So, the girls have some
significant advantages.

Of course, coding, information technology, computing, etc. consist of "clean
indoor work, no heavy lifting".

With those advantages and the nature of the work, it would appear that any
girls who want to do well in _coding_ , etc. have a good shot, often better
than that of the boys.

(2) Evaluation.

How to evaluate the girls?

As in the OP, is it important for the girls to wear pretty, feminine clothes
versus _nerd_ wear of worn jeans and T-shirts?

No. The main issue is getting the work done.

When I was a student, it seemed that the girls got graded on their work, not
their clothes; when I was a professor giving grades, again the only issue for
a grade was the work. Thus, it seems to me that, in the world of work in
_information technology_ , the easy, natural, obvious approach is just to
evaluate the work, ignoring clothing, gender, etc.

(3) Writing.

In computing, we need to build on the work of others, but to do so we need a
good description of that work. That is, we need good documentation.

Thus, to me, currently the main bottleneck to progress in information
technology is bad documentation from poor writing. Since in school on average
the girls were better at writing than the boys, I have to believe that girls
can be quite welcome and do well improving the quality of the writing and,
thus, help alleviate the bottleneck.

If my startup works, then I will have to hire, and I will expect a person who
does some work will also write the relevant documentation. Here the girls
should have an advantage.

------
wesleyy
This same article was posted on r/programming yesterday
([http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2y4294/coding_l...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2y4294/coding_like_a_girl/)).
The discussion following was quite interesting, especially this one comment
regarding the twitter exchange
([http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2y4294/coding_l...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2y4294/coding_like_a_girl/cp6g1dj)).

"I'm not trying to say the whole article is bad so stay with me here, but is
it just me or does some of this just come off as negative thinking and
negative assumptions? A few examples from the article.. I have been a TA for
weekend workshops that teach women to code. My male co-TA’s constantly asked
me throughout the workshop how I was enjoying learning to program. ...
....Apparently, presenting as feminine makes you look like a beginner. You
were at an event to teach women to code. I don't know the specifics because I
wasn't there however maybe the assumption should be that they just didn't
realise you weren't a student? I can understand how that must be frustrating
but why attribute it to what you were wearing? I feel like the author didn't
go into detail here. In another section the author links to a photo on
twitter[1] that makes it appear as a commenter is telling Casey Johnston to
read her own article. Casey Johnston: So many “solutions” to the lack of women
in tech don’t get at the actual problems… Tomas Sancio: @caseyjohnston read
the full article. There's a chicken and egg problem w/ female tech role
models. Men want to be the next Jobs/Gates/etc. When I first read this
screenshot I took it for what it was. "read the article"... i.e. "I read the
article" and that's exactly what it turned out to be when I found the
tweets[2] . The author putting this screenshot of twitter in here I feel is
simply misrepresenting the situation or hasn't researched into even looking at
the full context? I have to admit i've only looked at this for 10 minutes,
maybe I'm getting the wrong picture here, but from what i've seen it's a
completely different story to the one shown on the author's page. I often read
these gender inequality articles, however I am always constantly disappointed
when things like the above are over dramatized, or I do additional research to
only find out that the author is presenting an incredibly biased view of a
situation. I don't want people to conclude that there is no gender inequality,
however I feel that things like the above do not help get the point across. In
fact I think they do the opposite."

------
EGreg
I remember the uproar about a guy was on the team that landed a spacecraft on
a comet, but who then came out of his den with tattoos and a t-shirt that
seemed to depict women clothed in lingerie engaging in BDSM. The
accomplishments were brushed aside as the guy was reduced to a tearful
apology.

I think both sexes should be able to wear whatever they would wear in real
life. Depending on the job of course. But when programming, that seems
reasonable. I would probably _prefer_ a woman who presents as feminine, as a
developer. Maybe that is because I am comfortable with traditional gender
dress and think it looks better. But maybe it's because I think the nerdy
dress is actually downplaying the feminine qualities in order to fit in with
men. Either way, it seems anything you say on the issue can always be spun as
sexist, because your preferences can be explained by a lifetime if
conditioning.

Unmarried women out-earn men now, but the situation switches when they have
children. Is this bad or good? That would imply a goal. For my part I don't
understand why or when the goal became for "all women" to start knocking
themselves out for 10 hours a day at a corporation and be paid more than their
husbands who would share child rearing duties just so women could move up a
corporate ladder. Since when is this forcefed as "success" to women? I think,
if anything, the agenda itself is sexist. If some women want to do it, they
can - there are plenty of opportunities for women who want to work long hours
and engage in corporate culture. But in this economy, I think it's actually an
exploitative myth being sold to men and women alike, and I don't think many
women actually want to maximize their "success" in this dimension, once they
consider the trade offs.

------
kelukelugames
Any else reminded of PG's article on how showmanship is more important than
logic in a talk?

[http://paulgraham.com/speak.html](http://paulgraham.com/speak.html)

------
mrits
If you worked where I do (on Earth) you will be judged for your
gender,age,race,education,social standing, where you grew up, hygiene,
personality, religion, etc...

~~~
ncallaway
I absolutely don't understand this argument.

Person A says "X is happens and is bad". Person B responds "X happens, along
with Y, Z, and W." What is the objective of the argument presented by person
B?

It doesn't refute or disagree with Person A in any way. Is the point to
minimize or trivialize X because Y, Z, and W also happen?

Does the presence of Y, Z, and W mean we shouldn't make progress on X?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
To quote a tweet I read today:

    
    
      The only definition of Good vs Evil you really need:
      "Well that's just how the world is..."
      
      EVIL: "So there!"
      GOOD: "So let's change it"
    

[https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/574082344073629696](https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/574082344073629696)

------
hasenj
Honestly? It sounds like she's asking for conflict.

> It was then that I was 100% sure my dressing up wasn’t for him at all, I
> didn’t at all care if a partner disliked my dresses, or makeup. I was
> wearing them for me. And it was then, that I realized that continuing to
> wearing dresses just for myself was a totally valid way to say a big FUCK
> YOU to the patriarchy.

If I wore a suit to work just to appear/feel "elite" (i.e. of higher social
status) about myself, I would totally not be surprised if my behavior is met
with animosity from my fellow developers who mostly dress down or just dress
casually.

> But she did and wore a nerdy tshirt and jeans instead, and she had a better
> experience that day. People assumed she was technical and didn’t dilute
> their explanations to her.

So it's not about being a female developer, it's about the image you're
presenting of yourself.

~~~
gaius
If a person is walking about thinking "fuck you" all the time then that's
going to show in their facial expression, body language, tone of voice,
general attitude... That's true regardless of gender. And over time its going
to affect how others treat them.

------
kj22
I associate people who believe throwing or acting "like a girl" means doing it
half-assed or terribly with people who are either uneducated, close-minded, or
just plain assholes.

I understand there's a problem in our country, even in our whole world, but is
forcing this down our throats the proper way to solve it? Is it solvable? Not
to sound like an asshole myself, but with the route feminism is taking us,
we're going to have people hand-feeding women who don't deserve to be in a
specific role. I myself have specifically experienced such an event where my
manager hired a woman because he said we need to hire one, not because she had
experience that made her worthy. In fact she had far less experience compared
to the other people interviewing. One of my best friends on the other hand is
one of the most kickass programmers I have ever seen and everyone respects her
for it. She works for her status, rather than feeding off of being a woman.

People shouldn't judge a book by its cover, as they say. That's what this is
all about and I may have gone off-track. However, its also naive to forget or
completely deny that people are inherently competitive. People like to boast
about themselves, not others. Woman or man, work politics are something
everyone has to deal with. It's wrong for someone to use a woman's gender
against her competitively, but then again it's also wrong for a man to throw
another man "under the bus" or take credit for someone else's work to get
ahead. I hope that one day we can work towards being better to humans as a
whole rather than better towards a specific gender or race. Maybe I'm an
asshole, who knows. Maybe we are all assholes.

------
tymski
“Why are your slides so pink? It’s very distracting.” “Stop pushing your hair
behind your ear when you present. It’s very distracting.” “Your voice goes up
after every sentence you say.” and comments rating my appearance.

My Technical Communications professor told me to not add flashy colors to my
slides, be careful about too much distracting movement especially hand
movements, speak consistently and wear clothing that doesn't distract from the
material.

Either she is sexist towards men or this article is desperate. I think it
might be the former, but I could be wrong.

