“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”.
I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this. Honestly, it annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or whatever, but rather because it's fucking stupid.
I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years, and I've never seen any reason to believe that female programmers are in any way less competent than their male counterparts. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this shit? Making crude jokes, sexually charged statements, some of these other things I can understand (that doesn't make them right mind you, I'm just saying I can understand the place some of it comes from), but I can't even begin to understand a mindset of insinuating that women are less capable as developers/hackers/programmers/whatever.
To anybody who believes that women are somehow inherently inferior at coding, let me just say that you're wrong. Absolutely, totally, completely wrong. Maybe you haven't worked with enough women, or maybe you had the bad fortune to work with the wrong women, or maybe you just weren't paying attention, but it's just not true.
Reading about history is usually a good way to educate. ENIAC, the world's first and fastest (at that time) electronic computer, had a full time devops staff of six. ENIAC was a beast of a machine, using a whopping 150kW of power, and broke on a daily basis. ENIAC's devops team was comprised of Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming
If you program or do operations for a living, know the first of your kind were hard working women who also dressed to the nines when they showed up for work.
Why's it matter that some of the first people entering programs on a computer were women.
Does the converse hold true too - that we should focus on the "engineers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Bartik, "after learning how the machine worked only by reviewing diagrams of the device and by talking to its engineers: there was no manual") who were presumably* all male (?). And say to everyone look the predecessors of today's computer engineers were all men, and they wore suits to work.
Seems weird.
What also seems weird is that in all the ENIAC articles and the biographical details linked from the ENIAC stuff (eg http://quest.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/bartik.html) when the programming is mentioned it's not mentioned that Mauchly and Eckert were part of the programming team. Indeed it's said in a few places (that NASA link) that the women had no help other than logic diagrams in creating the programs. But elsewhere - Jean Bartik article in Wikipedia - it mentions that they talked with the engineers. It seems they are making pains to say this was a team of females, alone, with no male members; but Mauchly and Eckert were part of the team, no?
Didn't they all work together? Was there segregation that prevented Bartik, McNulty, and the other female workers from being considered peers in the effort along with Mauchly and Eckert. Did they really prevent the programmers from learning from the engineers how to program the machine somehow; didn't the engineers get involved at all in the design of programmes?
- - -
* - as it's not mentioned and surely would be; not because I think all engineers are male.
It matters because it's history and my daughter, for one, found it interesting. She liked the fact that other women did what I do for a living, except they didn't wear pajamas to work like I do. It matters because the world is going need a shit ton of good engineers and the more people who program, the merrier.
We don't have to sweat what happened back then too much, I think. What matter is what we choose to do tomorrow.
What matter is what we choose to do today. You can say you're going to do just about anything tomorrow but if you don't do today what enables that then your words are worthless.
I guess I just find the "see, see, women can program too" to be pretty hollow; of course some of them can, just like some men can. Why are the men any less of a role model for budding programmers than the women though; focussing on the sex of particular people doing particular jobs doesn't seem like a good way to free children from the idea that they are limited in the careers they can pursue because of their sex alone (as opposed to characteristics that might be influenced by their sex, which is truistic).
This way just seems to me to say "well unless you can find examples of people of your sex doing that job well then forget it", or worse "it's unusual for women to be clever enough to program so we're making a song-and-dance about these ones". These people, the programmers of ENIAC should be noted for their work, not their sex.
I completely agree with the sentiment not to be bound unnecessarily to historic models.
>She liked the fact that other women did what I do //
Are you comfortable with the primary characteristic that people's work is judged is the sex of the person. Why not "that these were early pioneers in my field"? I'm not saying that you can, or should, control your daughters thought output but just asking if this is really how you want to be viewed WRT your work as a female programmer rather than just as a programmer.
Disambiguation only goes so far with things. With men and women it gets close to us all be 'human' but it remains our sex is a strong identifier, and one that binds us uniquely socially. I'm trying to see your point on "see, see, women can program too", but in reality I find you indicating I'm saying things I did not. All I did was mention what my daughter said to me and using natural, non-blaming identifiers to talk about it with her. You took it took it to a whole another level by making me say things in ways that was never my intent.
I'm going to be cool with the fact you did this with my comment, but you should really consider why you feel this way about it instead of doing a hack job with my comments. I support anyone doing anything they want and if you knew me, you'd know I'm someone who considers someone's worth by their actions, not by what they look, smell or taste like.
That also goes for people who don't quite understand how to state how they themselves feel about important matters.
> "it's unusual for women to be clever enough to program so we're making a song-and-dance about these ones"
The more examples you see of people like you programming, the less of a song-and-dance you think it is. And you might perceive it as putting them up on a pedestal, but others don't.
In an ideal world, we don't have to increase the visibility of other genders in programming.
Did you have role models and examples that you looked up to who also looked like you? I think it's a hard thing to empathize with if you've always had those examples.
> "well unless you can find examples of people of your sex doing that job well then forget it"
Which is a stronger message to a child: other genders or ethnicities being held up as examples or never seeing anyone who looks like you doing what you want to do?
There is a certain class of person with low self esteem, whose mechanism for raising it is to raise themselves up by lowering others. Basically, a bully.
Bullies look for easy targets, because they want to attack someone who won't fight back. You'll appear to be an easy target if:
- You are a minority in the population where the bully hunts
- You appear to be isolated from others
- You are associated in the bully's mind with a group that the bully considers easy pickings
Bullies in general are not interested in the ideologies or politics associated with their attacks. They've just learned what buttons to push in order to cause maximum fear and powerlessness. When their victim feels disempowered, the bully feels empowered for causing it.
The only way to stop a bully is to hit them back. They're cowards at the core, and will go looking for easier victims if you fight back.
I think you are being distracted by the content of the comment. This kind of nonsense has nothing to do with sexism. (Or if it were racist it has nothing to do with racism, or any other types of 'isms.) Some people are simply cruel, angry, sadistic bullies and the internet gives them the anonymity to get away with it. The reason for the comment was only to hurt.
What purpose is served by trying to argue that an overtly sexist comment ("you're a woman, leave development to the men") has nothing to do with sexism? This is another instance of the "to a certain kind of nerd, every problem can be unproductively reduced to a spreadsheet" fallacy that Joel Spolsky talked about on his blog.
Follow the logic to its conclusion and what you're ending up with is "there's no such thing as sexism (or racism, or ageism); there is only exploitation and abuse, and sexism happens to be one of its vectors". About the best thing you can say about an argument like that is that it's a flight to abstraction, demanding that we litigate epistemology instead of dealing with the circumstances that are staring us in the face.
The signal these tangential arguments tend to send is "the author of this comment is profoundly uncomfortable confronting sexism". It is OK to be uncomfortable with sexism; you don't have to engage.
You're having a different conversation from Mindcrime and Protonfish.
Mindcrime expressed confusion that anyone could actually believe such a thing. Protonfish expressed his belief that such comments are primarily intended to hurt, by which he's implicitly agreeing with Mindcrime. He doesn't think the attackers actually believe such a thing.
He's not trying to minimize the attack. He's just attempting to help Mindcrime understand how someone would say something that they both believe to not be true.
What he's not doing is addressing the origin of the desire to hurt, which likely is based (at least so I believe) in misogyny.
No one has at any point said there is no such thing as sexism or misogyny.
"has nothing to do with sexism" is too strong.
imgabe has it right: "they aren't cruel because they are sexist, they are sexist because they are cruel."
Consider 1960's era Chicago real estate agent who makes money by the following process:
1) Scare white people out of the neighborhood by having a black woman push a baby in a stroller outside their house.
2) Buy their house for cheap
3) Rent-to-own the house to black people and just as they are about to own it, bring up some bullshit thing and evict them.
He is more likely motivated by greed than a desire to fuck over black people for the sake of racism. But he's still acting racist and contributing to the system of systemic racism. A troll how picks sexist remarks to fuck with people isn't really motivated by a sincere desire to advance sexism...but they are still contributing to sexism as a systemic problem.
That doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why do you believe that someone who says something sexist (or racist) is not actually sexist (or racist)? I see no reason at all for this assumption. It seems non-sensical to me.
Those people want to be cruel, sure, but they are also sexist (or racist).
Also, being sexist (or racist) is as much defined by actions and words as it is by intent. Actually, intent is pretty irrelevant (at least for the victim). What matters there are the actual actions and words.
They're real-life trolls. They may not actually believe the things they say, but they say them because they know it will upset you.
In some ways these people scare me more than actual sexists/racists/whateverists, because they're not ignorant, they just take joy in suffering, and actively manipulate people in such a way that maximizes chaos and pain. That mindset concerns me much more than someone who actually believes women/blacks/minority_group are inferior.
I don't think the majority stop and think "How can I upset this person?" otherwise we'd see males cop it from males a lot more. I think it happens on a more instinctive level. e.g., "That person is a different gender or race to me so I must attack" and something emotional is a quick and easy thoughtless option.
Agreed, but I suspect trolls do to some extent agree/believe. If they actively were against it, they wouldn't say it (or at least I certainly hope so). What concerns me is the casualness with which trolls threaten rape/death/other violence behind the anonymity of the internet; the more frequently this behavior is seen, the more normalized it becomes.
I think the distinction of intent is important, though it certainly doesn't excuse the words. Someone who is saying something sexist out of ignorance can be reached out to, possibly brought over to the right side with reason and the right approach.
Someone who is saying it even though they know they're wrong, just to get a rise out of people, is sociopathic, and engaging with them would be a waste of time.
In other words, some people are bigots of circumstance - having been born, raised in a time and place, or otherwise exposed to certain views at certain moments. They can become allies, or at least brought to a position that isn't firmly bigoted. I think it's worthwhile to recognize the difference if only for the pragmatic purpose of knowing which arguments might be worthwhile and which are clear wastes of time.
I think what he is trying to say is that their cruelty manifests as sexism. As in, they perceive the target's sex as the lowest-hanging fruit that they can attack, and they know it is likely to hurt the target, so they go for it.
It's like making fun of someone because they are short. That doesn't make someone a "shortist." It just shows that they are cruel human beings.
I see sexism as more of a fundamental belief. As in, the person went through some thought process that they think is logical, and they have reached a conclusion (that they think as logical) that women are inferior to men. This then comes out in their behavior even when the intention is not to cause harm. It's an attitude that exists independently of cruelty.
Again, how do you know that? That seems to be wishful thinking. Also, the end result is the same, either way. The intent doesn’t really matter all that much, if only because the mindset of someone going to sexism or racism to be cruel is seriously fucked up.
I’m certainly not racist or sexist when I want to be cruel to other people, even if I’m extremely angry and willing to say a lot to hurt the other person. Going there wouldn’t even cross my mind. (I tend to go for age, I think. That exposes my own ageism, something I still have to deal with. I don’t think that’s ok, either, and I also think being ageist is not ok.)
So, your working hypothesis based on that comment is that they're an otherwise friendly and fair-minded person, but when they see that a woman wrote a blog about programming they feel the need to go out of their way to write a comment telling them to stfu?
Anything's possible, I guess. But, based on my particular lifetime of experience with people, jerks are usually jerks in multiple aspects of their life.
You can be cruel without being sexist, and you can be sexist without being cruel. Every time sexism comes up, comments like this get trotted out. These people are bottom-feeders. They have no ability to affect anything in their own life, so they make hurtful comments on the internet to try and affect others, just so they can feel like they're in control of something.
Stamping out sexism isn't going to stop them from doing that. They're not reading these articles or these comments. If they are, they're just happy that someone is paying attention to them.
I think there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to fighting sexism than going after some basement-dwelling mouth-breathers who don't actually matter. You could actually focus on normal, good-intentioned people who have just been brought up in a culture of sexism and would happily change if it were pointed out to them how they're hurting others.
edit: I shouldn't say they "don't matter" as I've never been on the receiving end of it, and it probably matters a great deal when you are. I just meant that the ability of these people to affect someone's life beyond making hurtful comments on the Internet is minimal.
The idea that somebody must have logically thought about sexism before they can be sexist is bizarre. If I just feel in my gut that women are inferior and never give it any further thought, how on earth is that not sexist?
I didn't say "logically." I said they thought it was a logical thought process, whereas what really happened is that they made their decision first ("women are inferior") based on some gut feeling, and then rationalized it.
That's ridiculous. Of course intent matters. I would hope you take someone's intent into account anytime you perceive some slight. Otherwise you're just making the problem worse, elevating everything to a 10. The end result of not caring about intent are ridiculous "zero tolerance" policies.
This is an easy way, especially if you don't have any arguments, to diminish other people. Doesn't matter the gender. If one was a guy, the other one would say "you're a PHP developer, leave this crap to REAL developers". This is not sexist, it's just plain stupid, as you said.
Not specifically. It was more an issue of CF typically being kicked around - they're the last people I'd have thought would be wanting to kick others around. But I guess everyone wants to put someone else down.
It's good that you're strong enough, mature enough, wise enough to ignore that kind of idiocy. The problem is for the weaker, younger, more naive person that hears it and takes it seriously.
Definitely true, my younger version resented it. I can say with some confidence that no other group gets as much hate as Indians do in tech. Heck, There are whole message boards and websites like computerworld dedicated to cashing in on this hatred and insecurity that people in the west countries feel against Indians. And yet Indians seems seem to do well( infact thriving) desipte this massive backlash.
Suppose, as is common in my country, all your teachers (from ages 3 to 11 years) were female and all the service staff (janitors) were men. Wouldn't it be rational to assume that only women could be teachers and only men could be cleaners? So long as you're open to other rational viewpoints then you're not bigoted and you're going to be disavowed of your position quite readily.
I don't see a reason why any particular person can't be the best programmer in the world [assuming that can be tested/judged] regardless of sex. However, I consider men's brains and thought patterns to be different (as a statistical population) to women's and so consider that one group is more likely to (a) enjoy a particular activity, and (b) be adapted to excel at it. In this case, I consider the intersect of (a) and (b) to be more commonly found in men.
Would I try to hinder girls from pursuing programming, tech or CompSci careers? Why would I; I'd encourage them just as much as I would boys. Would I go out of my way to ensure there are more opportunities for girls to enter those same careers? Same answer.
Yes! When I read quotes like this I often wonder if they are literal quotations or if they're summary interpretations -- not because I distrust those who cite them but because it's so foreign and absurd a thing to say that it's hard to fit into my mental model of human behavior.
>I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years [...]
>It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this shit? //
Have you ever witnessed this sort of behaviour. Perhaps it's so rare that instead you can level your surprise towards anyone trying to say such misogyny is commonplace.
Would you accept, however, that the very best workers in any particular field are likely to be primarily of one sex or the other?
Honestly, having worked as a developer for 15+ years and in IT (in other capacities) for 20+, I don't remember ever seeing (first hand) anything of this nature directed at any of the women I worked with. That's not to say it never happened, but I either didn't see it, or it was never mentioned to me.
And by and large, the male colleagues I've had over the years have never struck me as having any such attitudes towards female programmers. I guess that's part of why this whole notion seems so foreign to me.
To be clear. You're saying apparent skew by sex of characteristics is simply down to inequitable consideration of the populations?
So, for example, men aren't in any way - as a population - stronger, say, and so more capable as bricklayers [in general] it's just that we're not analysing the populations properly? So, you'd warrant that arm strength, which follows a close correlation with sex (ie if your arms are able to lift more mass you're more likely to be male) has no bearing on ability to manipulate heavy weights. Just as an off-the-cuff example.
In anticipation: Don't come back with the "but there are female bodybuilders who can lift more than most men" type retort either, lets be adult about this. Of course there are, that offers no refutation.
I'm saying take a randomly selected population of 1000 women and 1000 men, teach them a skill. Test them. One population will be better generally than the other across repetitions of the experiment.
FWIW in my country girls perform better on average in maths at school, so maybe women would be better in the proposed experiment than men. Of course that speaks nothing to whether more women want to be programmers; it would be interesting nonetheless. Now take the top 100 [say] performers: sometimes [within an instance of the experiment] their modal sex will be the same as the better performing group, sometimes it will differ but I'd warrant across repetitions of the experiment the modal sex of the top performers is largely stable across many fields.
That's not what you asked. What you first asked was simple, with a simple answer: if all else is considered equal, the best practitioners are statistically most likely to come from the largest population.
What you're asking now sounds just as uninteresting. "The population higher in testosterone makes better bricklayers? Call the Nobel committee!"
It's true, you can set up giant psych experiments to demonstrate pretty much any bias you want. Have fun, but don't expect the bodybuilders and math students to care about your results. And try not to wander too close to eugenics.
>if all else is considered equal, the best practitioners are statistically most likely to come from the largest population. //
So as USA has a slightly greater female population the best practitioners of anything, say, will be female?
>"The population higher in testosterone makes better bricklayers? [...]" //
My point is that whilst I find that completely uncontentious and largely unremarkable it's the equivalent assertion that in other fields no one sex can in any way be said to be better, eg based on biological principles, that feminism trumps scientific observation that there are actual differences in the sexes that can manifest themselves in different occupational abilities (across a population).
This is writ large in the assertion which is often found that because there are fewer of one sex than the other in a given occupation there is sexism involved rather than there being the possibility of a sex bias in ability or desire to participate. I might also note that it's almost exclusively "too few females" in higher-paid jobs that are male dominated but that the proponents never seem bothered by their being "too few females" in lower paid jobs or "too few males" in higher-paid female dominated occupations.
>eugenics* //
We're pretty far away from that in asserting that observation of populations show that traits often have a statistical sexual bias. Surely so-called "positive discrimination" is far closer to eugenics than my laissez-faire approach of not concerning ourselves with the sex of people in any occupation but instead providing equal opportunities to the sexes to enter careers their personal inclinations and proclivities favour.
Though TBH I'd be happy to entertain the debate over whether reproduction should be supported by states along more meritocratic lines in order to avoid breeding the population away from desirable traits. So now you can justify commenting on eugenics to me as at least related to concepts I'm happy to explore.
> So as USA has a slightly greater female population the best practitioners of anything, say, will be female?
Is all else considered equal here? Obviously not.
As for the rest, any results are guaranteed to be biased and I have a hard time seeing any meaningful purpose (other than discrimination of course). Not interested. Have fun with it, try not to hurt anyone.
> I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this.
It's very simple really. In most parts of the world, female programmers are still a very rare sight. When I was a university instructor, we had approx. 2-3% female CS students attending our lectures and exams. With such gender distributions, the chances are very high that the handful of programming geniuses most people know, are all male. This leads to the widespread wrong conclusions.
In that case, the appropriate conclusion is "there exists programming geniuses that are men", not "women genius programmers do not/can not exist". The conclusion that you are proposing (that people jump to) is basically the black swan problem.
But the topic is not about genius programmers, anyway. It's about competent women programmers. If you have never seen women programmers, or the amount that you have seen is not great enough to draw conclusions from, then it is unfair to jump to the conclusion that they do not or can not exist.
So at what point have you worked with enough women to be allowed to make inferences? At what point do you stop trusting what you've read on the internet and start going by your own experience?
Because thinking back over all the people I've programmed with or inherited a codebase from[1], the average female programmer was significantly worse than the average male programmer (which is not to say that I haven't also worked with some excellent female programmers, because I have). I wish that wasn't true, and I make every effort to treat every new programmer I meet with an open mind. But it is. Maybe it's just statistical bad luck, but it's reached the point where it's very hard to ignore.
[1] And in the case of one inherited codebase with a foreign name I wasn't aware of the gender until long after I'd formed my judgement, so I think I'm being reasonably objective.
Because thinking back over all the people I've programmed with or inherited a codebase from
So basically, when considering a minuscule, poorly defined and poorly measured data-set, you've decided to draw broad conclusions about half the human population.
I'm not sure how great a programmer you are, but I'll tell you right now that your logic skills need some work.
Broad conclusions? No, more like weak inferences. Not everything can be a formally-verified proof; a vital skill in programming (for debugging if nothing else) is the ability to make a best guess based on limited data (and to know how much weight to give such guesses).
(If there were reliable science on the subject I would of course prefer to go by that, but that's practically impossible for a question that's so politicised)
Indeed, quite weak; weak to the point of being useless. In ten years of programming, I've only worked with two developers who were comfortable with the use of regular expressions, both were women... what does that tell me about women?
Nothing.
Similarly, whatever experiences you've had with female programmers who are "worse than the average male" programmer is pretty clearly worthless (for the purpose of drawing conclusions about female programmers), especially when one considers that your definition of average is, at best, a nebulous amalgamation of your own subjective impressions.
You're right that two probably isn't enough for a significant result - though it might be, if the effect size is large enough. How large was the rest of your sample, and how big was the difference? I won't stoop to insults the way you did, but are you really not even curious about these kind of differences?
How noble of you. You're right though. I apologize for disparaging your faculties of logic, it was tongue in cheek but wholly unnecessary.
though it might be, if the effect size is large enough. How large was the rest of your sample, and how big was the difference?
How can effect size be determined when we don't even know what is being measured? What is the criteria for determining the quality of a programmer? How is that criteria applied? Are there controls for education? exposure to programming as a child? years of experience? quality of experience? quality of tools available to the programmer? quality of the work environment in which we seek to evaluate the programmer's quality? It's reasonable for one to leverage professional experience in judging the skill level of colleagues, but it'd be foolish to think that those observations can be generalized across an arbitrary dimension of the programmer population (such as gender, or race, or political leaning).
are you really not even curious about these kind of differences?
I guess? I'm always eager to learn more, but I don't really find the question of programmer aptitude as a function of gender very interesting since I can't identify anything unique about programming that would suggest either gender would be qualitatively predisposed to the craft.
So at what point have you worked with enough women to be allowed to make inferences?
When the difference has an over 95% confidence level you usually have enough ground to start making inferences on new individuals. Just don't cherry pick the data, i.e. "good male programmers" versus "all female programmers".
In the statistical, average sense, those things are true, aren't they? So why are they stupid? I mean sure, it would be stupid to ignore someone's actual, demonstrated basketball skill just because they're not black. But it's just as stupid to stick our heads in the sand and pretend these patterns don't exist.
Generalizing from a sample of 1 girl would indeed be stupid. But at some point you have to start making inferences.
If a room has 9 people with a net worth of $0 and Bill Gates in it, then in the statistical, average sense the net worth of everyone in the room is $7.6 billion dollars. But the average doesn't really tell you anything about one particular person.
Wrong. Applying basic statistic controls would eliminate Gates from the pool as an outlier. The outlier would then be listed aside the mean. That is... unless you mean median, or range. Then those are terribly different numbers.
It tells you something. It might still make the room a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors. Of course more detail is better, but you have to work with what you know (and look to learn more when you can).
It tells you something about the group as a whole (not any individual member of the group) IF you are able to gather enough data to have a representative sample of the population. If you were only able to get the net worth of 20% of the people in the above room, the vast majority of the time you'd conclude that the average net worth of the room is $0.
There are some 3.5 billion women on the planet. Do you think you've reviewed the programming work of enough of them to constitute a representative sample?
> You have to work with what you know
Yes, what I'm pointing out is that you don't have enough information to claim to know anything.
I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this. Honestly, it annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or whatever, but rather because it's fucking stupid.
I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years, and I've never seen any reason to believe that female programmers are in any way less competent than their male counterparts. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this shit? Making crude jokes, sexually charged statements, some of these other things I can understand (that doesn't make them right mind you, I'm just saying I can understand the place some of it comes from), but I can't even begin to understand a mindset of insinuating that women are less capable as developers/hackers/programmers/whatever.
To anybody who believes that women are somehow inherently inferior at coding, let me just say that you're wrong. Absolutely, totally, completely wrong. Maybe you haven't worked with enough women, or maybe you had the bad fortune to work with the wrong women, or maybe you just weren't paying attention, but it's just not true.