
Help fund Rails Girls Summer of Code 2014  - FloorD
http://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/campaign/
======
nmrm
This is addressed to the copious negative top-level comments.

As someone with first-hand experience attending a computer summer camp, I
think this is important.

I attended a computer summer camp as a kid. It was all male and had an very
awful culture (e.g. lunch conversations were pretty pubescent and gaming was
really important). The culture seriously turned me off, to the point that I
stopped programming entirely and got into math for a while afterwards. Oh, and
I'm male...

If a girl joined any random summer camp 12 years ago, she would be the only
girl in the group. This may have changed since then, but I'm sure not by much.

Sense of belonging and community is important, and it's not unreasonable to
suspect that a male-dominated summer camp would not provide a girl with that
sense of community. Especially at that age.

A more ideal solution might be increasing the number of girls interested in
computer science so that this simply is not a problem. Unfortunately, it's
unrealistic to assume that will happen over night. In the mean time, camps
such as this might decrease the social barriers to entry for girls interested
in CS. That's a Good Thing.

~~~
computer
I have experience with summer camps for Mathematics (as a participant) for
kids from 10-18. I'm not sure how they manage to achieve it, but it was
probably 55%/45% male/female. I think that half the camp elders being female
helped a lot, as well as wise promotion and word of mouth after 20 successful
years.

I feel that the camps being mixed added a ton to the experience. I can't begin
to describe all the benefits, but for me as a boy, the camps first showed me
that both genders can be interested in nerdy stuff, and that such interests
are actually fine and quite normal.

However, if it would have been 95% boys, I think it would have been better to
split them by gender. Especially among children it's hard to be the only girl
in a group of only boys. Then, once the girl group starts to grow by
intelligent promotion and word of mouth, perhaps you can merge the camps once
the split is more favorable.

~~~
nmrm
Thanks for sharing! I never had the opportunity to attend such a camp, and I'm
glad to hear mathematics camps are well balanced.

I agree that the merging strategy makes a lot sense, esp. for the reasons you
give in the second paragraph. Hopefully the critical mass of girls interested
in CS will exist soon.

------
parennoob
As an Asian person who undergoes a ton of implicit and occasionally explicit
racial discrimination (I have often been called out repeatedly for belonging
to a specific nationality, and been the butt of numerous jokes regarding it),
it is somewhat disheartening to see people who are higher than you on the
social totem pole (e.g. highly-educated white females) often being the
beneficiaries of programs such as these on the basis of their gender. It is
absolutely true that they too probably have been discriminated against in the
_technology_ field, but in the overall _social_ arena, they are in a much
better position than, say, Asian men.

As a result, in an average tech workplace (which is a combination of technical
and social factors), I think Asian people are at just as much, if not more at
a disadvantage than women.

I don't want to feel animosity, or even ambivalence towards such programs, but
given the reason above, it is a bit difficult for me not to. Any
thoughts/solutions that the HN crowd might have about this? By nature, I'm not
particularly inclined towards $SOCIETAL_GROUP-specific programs, but if that
is the solution people think is useful, I'd be willing to advocate for it in
the future, and focus towards soliciting donations, etc. for that instead.

[edit: Downvoters, I'm asking for opinions or solutions. Why not offer one in
addition to your downvote?]

~~~
lomegor
Why do you feel the need to say that Asian people are more at a disadvantaged
that women? Can't we agree that both are at a disadvantage and we should help
them? Your statement is highly subjective and really difficult to prove. You
are also implying that we should help women less and Asian people more. Don't
be like that. There's absolutely no need to try to empower one group while
lowering another one.

~~~
yypark
Both groups may be at a disadvantage and may have certain privileges, but
people rarely acknowledge the (1) the disadvantage of Asians, especially Asian
men, and (2) the privileges of white women. Secondly, the population of Asian
men is 3% in the US, the population of white women is 32%, and the feminist
movement is far stronger than the Asian (or Asian male) movement, thus Asian
men are also placed in the "privileged" and "oppressor" class.

So while one powerful group is pushing for representation of women in
engineering, another is fighting for broader social equity for Asians - the
latter is often seen as less legitimate when applied to Asian men specifically
(low social status, lower marriage/dating prospects), or which are huger
racial things that may never be fixed anytime soon in a US society while
Asians remain a tiny minority, because those are the kinds of inequalities
that people tolerate, while under representation of women in engineering is
widely recognized and addressed as a bad thing.

------
rollo
Sounds like it was great last year, so it's absolutely worth it. Such events
are definitely needed.

~~~
bttf
Why are they needed? To counter genderism? If so, doesn't it seem self-
defeating to try to outgrow our sexist prejudices by actively countering them?

If women have suffered discrimination in the software development community,
we can all make an effort not to let it happen. But to create an
institutionalized/organized effort towards countering prejudice is to
strengthen it by latching on to it, rather than acknowledging it and letting
it go.

EDIT: To clarify my point, I think we all need to be aware of not only
genderism but unfounded prejudice in general, towards all human beings. An
institution/organization or summer camp towards the equality of all seems to
me a more equitable premise rather than a 'Girls-only' camp, which seems to be
legitimate only because most of us are aware of the historical prejudices
towards women.

~~~
justinsteele
We can all simply "make an effort not to let it happen" in 2014? Shucks, I
wish we had thought of this earlier! Such an easy solution.

~~~
bttf
I'm not offering a solution but just what I think is a more sensible way of
approaching the problem.

------
azakai
I tried to donate to this, but

1\. The popup to donate shows up on a page where the URL is not https. This
looks wrong, but closer inspection shows that it is an iframe that is in fact
properly secured. But had I not known how to find that out (right-click, show
page info), I would not enter my credit card info on a non-https site.

2\. My card was declined, the first time in my life that that has ever
happened. I triple-checked the information I entered and it is valid. Could be
my fault, but given I've never had a problem before, perhaps an issue with the
site?

Based on those two things, this project might be missing out on some amount of
donations (at least mine, since I don't have another card to try). Hopefully
that's fixable.

~~~
bullfight
On point 2

I went through the same thing. Your card was declined because these donations
are being routed through the Travis Foundation's Stripe account which is now
based in Germany. As an international org based in Germany your bank/cc
flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent.

I don't think Rails Girls/Travis can do much about this, you need to call your
bank to get them to allow the transaction.

~~~
azakai
Requiring people to call their bank is a much higher barrier than it should
be, though? I buy stuff online all the time and things just work. I hope Rails
Girls can use another payment processing solution.

------
Grue3
Why would you want to expose children to the horror that is Ruby on Rails in
the first place?

------
stefantalpalaru
Be careful who you donate to. Sometimes in the future you might become the CEO
of Mozilla and this kind of sexism might be considered unacceptable enough to
spark a boycott campaign.

~~~
username223
How is a (silly and misguided, IMHO) set of perks for some people at all
related to a campaign to deny basic rights to some other people because you
think they're icky? Live and let live, yo!

~~~
wyager
So you're saying it's ok to give "perks" based on gender, but not to detract
based on gender?

Those seem like different ways of saying the same thing. Discriminating in
favor of one group is more or less isometric to discriminating against the
other group.

A code camp that was boys-only would get torn apart on hacker news, even
though it follows your definition of a "set of perks for some people".

~~~
username223
Yes. You're welcome to ask for money for e.g. an "Aryans for Rails" fund.
That's very different from lobbying for apartheid laws.

------
bighi
Yep, that's the way. Fight sexism with more sexism! Go girls!

------
prof_hobart
It would help if there was some explicit explanation of why they think this is
necessary.

Are women being discriminated against when the apply to the more general
Summer Of Code events, or are they choosing not to apply because they are (or
are worried about being) harassed or ostracized when they go to those events?

And if either of these are issues, it seems far healthier in the long term to
address those problems rather than starting a girls first event.

~~~
nmrm
From personal experience, it's a cultural issue.

Admissions aren't discriminatory, but summer camps of this sort are typically
dominated by males. Being the only "different" person in a largely homogeneous
group can cause all sorts of difficulties at that age.

Sense of community and belonging are as important, if not more important, than
instruction.

FWIW, male-dominated summer camps are a problem for males and females alike.
Many middle school boys don't like having the sorts of lunch time
conversations that groups of middle school guys invariably gravitate toward.

If you have a way to solve the massive over-representation of males in summer
programming camps, please share! Until such solutions exist, camps such as
this one are undeniably crucial.

~~~
prof_hobart
If you can organise a separate event for females, you can organise the same
group of females to go to the main event.

------
lutusp
Do I need to explain what's wrong with this idea? Imagine that I started a
program called "Rails boys summer of code".

The alternative is obvious -- have qualified girls apply to an appropriately
named rails summer of code, and if they're rejected based on their gender,
take the responsible parties to court. This is how gender equality comes into
being -- not by creating a set-aside program conspicuous only for its overt
sexism.

The underlying message of this program is that _as programmers_ , girls are
different than boys. This is both false and absurd -- mathematics, logic and
computer science have no gender.

~~~
natasham25
I got my little sister - almost 15 - to apply for this program. It's important
for me that she has a very safe and welcoming environment to get excited about
coding - since this will be her introduction to it. I feel like having 15-16
year old boys in the program would be very distracting and counterproductive
for her.

This is from experience. I'm a woman who codes, and I mostly go to the women
who code meetups because I can learn in a safe space that I personally enjoy.

The first time I went to a normal Rails meetup - with majority guys - there
were two guys having a pissing contest about whether ERB is better than HAML,
and then another guy was apologizing to me for the two guys being "so
technical".

In meetups where there are only women, we get to actually learn and support
each other, and it's great. I want the same environment for my sister to learn
in.

~~~
lutusp
> I got my little sister - almost 15 - to apply for this program. It's
> important for me that she has a very safe and welcoming environment to get
> excited about coding - since this will be her introduction to it. I feel
> like having 15-16 year old boys in the program would be very distracting and
> counterproductive for her.

All completely reasonable points, and your choices also seem reasonable. But
let me ask when, if ever, your sister will be able to leave that sequestered
environment and enter the real world. Isn't it our goal to take down these
barriers and achieve gender equality?

Gender equality doesn't mean two colonies, one of men and another of women. It
means one society composed of men and women. Or am I wrong about that?

> I mostly go to the women who code meetups because I can learn in a safe
> space that I personally enjoy.

Yes, understood. That's why men go to meetings where only men are present --
same reasoning, same outcome.

> In meetups where there are only women, we get to actually learn and support
> each other, and it's great. I want the same environment for my sister to
> learn in.

I know a secret that I'm going to reveal to you -- that works for men too. But
it has the unfortunate side effect of making men intolerant of the presence of
women. Do you want that outcome for women?

I ask this in all sincerity, without judgment or rancor -- do you want a
society in which men and women pay attention only to their own instincts and
needs, and make no effort to construct a society composed of both men and
women?

~~~
natasham25
> But let me ask when, if ever, your sister will be able to leave that
> sequestered environment and enter the real world. Isn't it our goal to take
> down these barriers and achieve gender equality?

Keep in mind this will be her first experience actually programming. I created
an iOS app with her - she drew everything an did the voice overs - but hasn't
programmed at all.

I want her to get so excited about coding and making something, that she
sticks with it. If she's scared away by her first experience, as many women
are, there will continue to be a pretty big inequality in tech.

That's why programs like these are so important. I stick with it because I
LOVE what I do now and have the confidence and knowledge to stand up to my
coworkers, etc - but it took a lot to get to this point. Having safe support
in the early stages is critical.

> I know a secret that I'm going to reveal to you -- that works for men too.
> But it has the unfortunate side effect of making men intolerant of the
> presence of women. Do you want that outcome for women?

I work with men all day. I also go to meetups where there are men - going to
one tonight b/c there is a great speaker and I will not miss out on the
opportunity only because there are men at the meetup. Also going to a tech
conference later this month, where there will be men.

However, going to these events takes a lot of effort and work for me - I have
to deal with people not taking me seriously, guys potentially hitting on me,
having to prove myself, etc. Would be great if guys made some effort too, but
most don't. I can only tolerate so much of it.

That said, again, if there is a safe space for women to learn together and
discuss issues they're facing, they're more likely to stay in the industry,
which makes a more equal society of women and men. And as more women work with
men in tech as programmers, the more men learn to tolerate and work with
women. As more women are supported by other women, we will venture out and go
to the normal meetups, but the women who code meetups are a great safe
environment to get started with and keep as a support network throughout our
careers.

------
vezzy-fnord
Honestly if the foundation's goal is to support women trying to break into the
programming community without imposing any external ideology (particularly not
any virulent postmodernism), I likely wouldn't have any qualms with donating.

I'm not really familiar with what they actually do, however, and whether they
have any notable efficacy.

