Slashdot Mirror
Etsy Hacker Grants Support Female Programmers
samazon writes "Online retail shop Etsy announced a living-expenses grant program for women interested in attending the free Hacker School 3-month programming course. The program is hosted in various New York locations (NYU and Spotify have both hosted sessions) and not only is Etsy offering $5,000 grants to ten women who are accepted into the program, they're also hosting the summer course, and have offered enough space to double the class size to 40 students."
Can they teach my girlfriend how to play Starcraft?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Hey I've been out of work for 6 months and I'm not above going tranny
Who cares what sex the code comes from? I want the best possible, not because it's from a woman.
But such is the way of "progressives"
Having females at all in the hacker college is good, for some reason? I don't see how there's any inherent higher value of an woman versus an equally-skilled man; why not make this a merit/financial circumstance based grant?
100 years ago, in New York, there were signs on Italian businesses which read, "Micks need not apply." ("Mick" is a slur against the Irish, for those of you who are not well read.)
50 years ago, angry white people held up signs exhorting black people to stay out of their neighborhoods.
Now that racism is almost completely socially unacceptable (except against Asians, who for some reason are still unjustly and openly targeted,) people who like to blame their failure to relate on those with whom they cannot relate have to find new targets.
If I was a dude selling stuff on Etsy, I would feel insulted. The owners of Etsy make profit from people who sell there, and then take some of that profit to offer financial support - but only if the person was born a certain way? Fuck that. It's sexism, and it's wrong.
women only is asking for discrimination suits
Nice Slashdot. Way to be, you know, journalistic.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
They want women so they can pay them less.. Business masterminds!
here's my contact info... just feed it to your favorite compiler and run the executable to generate a QR code that lets you bypass the 7 proxies to my linkedin profile. btw, your packets smell like roses. you wanna get out of here?
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
If we have man tits can we get like $2500?
Because, for a "meritocracy", there's a whole lots of sexist bullshit going on in tech, and I'm not just talking about management.
Part of the reason that women aren't more prevalent in tech, is that as soon as it becomes known that a female is present in a discussion (on-line, or in-person), the tone of the discussion changes radically. Women have a much harder time getting people to accept their ideas, even controlling for level of experience. And, you can't tell me inexperienced females come up with stupider ideas than inexperienced males (if anything, I think it's the opposite, 'cause at least most women I know bother to listen for a bit before making a comment, where most young males just shoot off their mouth at the first opportunity).
No more are the comments about the technical correctness of ideas being discussed - nope, suddenly there's snide sexual innuendos that slide in. Women are being "bitches" if they fight for their ideas, but, hey, if I (a guy) strongly advocate my idea, that's just fine. And, that's just the start of it. I hear stuff (both in the discussion and afterwards) about such-and-such being "weak" or "avoiding talking" or similar. Not to mention the fact that during such discussions, I'll commonly see that the topic switches from "which idea is best", to "make sure that girl's idea doesn't win". It's annoying, to say the least, and I can understand why many women avoid tech - it's not fun to be constantly harassed or belittled simply due to being the only woman in the room.
The primary problem here is not just a small minority of males being the jerk, but that the majority of males present give them a pass on it, and don't call them on their crap. That's just aiding and abetting the problem. DON'T GIVE THE JERKS A FREE PASS. Pay attention when women are trying to comment, and tell the assholes to shut their mouths when they start in with the sexist comments.
Tech is supposed to be about quality of ideas, not personal attacks. Don't be an enabler.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
If we accept the premise that gender is in no way related to programming abilities, the current gender distribution in the field means that we're missing out on a lot of great talents. So why is that, and what can we do about it? Sticking our heads into the sand and pretending that there is no problem sure as hell hasn't worked so far. I think we need to realize that there is a feedback loop going here. Getting more women into programming helps in creating role models and a less hostile environment.
Why only the women are getting the benefits?
What about the men?
Etsy doesn't care about their male customer any longer, does it?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I think that the way to understand the visceral reactions and willfully beligerant arguments on the behalf of so many men here, is to understand the intimate violence that men, and programmers in particular, have experienced at the hand of woman. I think that a lot of men intuit that their world is "outside" the home, and that women's world is "inside" the home. Women being the masters of the inside of the home places women as the masters of the inside of the heart. Since women say "no" to men's access to their own hearts space, their most intimate and sexual feelings, men feel that they have a right, and perhaps even a duty, to own the outer world.
To put it another way: If our culture was not sexually violent, if in our culture men had loving sexual intimate relationships with women, they would have no problems with women occupying "their" space. But in a culture of sexual humiliation of men, there is no way that they are going to give up "their" territory.
1) Environments with a good mix of men and women are more productive
2) 20% of all long term relationships start at work. I am all for improving my odds and so should you be. Its not sexist or objectifying to actually want to interact with the opposite sex daily.
This is acceptable to me because, its not necessarily "affirmative action", but rather it is attempting to attract another demographic. Lets be clear here, this program is:
a) Free.
b) Not terribly competitive.
You're conflating the "ends" with the "means".
HAND.
It is a fact that men have a lower average lifespan then women. Since it would be foolish to assume that men want do die younger it must therefor be women who are the cause of this. That is your logic. The races and genders are not equal. Only foolish bleeding hearts believe this, there are differences in alcohol tolerance, weight gain from sugar intake, heart disease risks and countless other diseases which affect one race more then the other.
To therefor blindly assume that all races and genders are equally good at programming is naive or downright hateful.
What are programmers? Well, from Slashdot you can readily deduce that a LOT of them are not the social norm. Gosh, could (functional) Autism which affects men more then women be over represented among computer programmers?
Historic fact is that when math became computers, women were OVER represented in the field. They were considered better at it. Sexist? Now they are under represented (worked with exactly 1 female co-worker in over a hundred men in my career, in my class there were two girls out of 25 boys and our class had a high number of girls, as in all the girls from that year).
Is this the male culture? Is it genetics? Is it culture? Is it race? Is it gender? Is it physical? If you deny any of them without investigation, you are ultimately doing everyone a disservice. It would be like denying that a soldier can't get Sickle Cell disease, because once they couldn't because blacks couldn't become soldiers. Now they can and a doctor would be wise to use race when trying to diagnose a person. Overly PC is harmful.
We have in western culture some typical male dominated professions and some typical female dominated once, and a lot of surprises with them if you think about it. Professors are male, teachers female. Why the shift in gender with the age of the pupil? Why are cafeteria run by women but top restaurants by men when women do most of the cooking in the world? Why are dress makers male?
Mind you, the Dutch government at least IS sponsoring men who want to teach younger kids, since it has been decided that a lack of male role-models can be harmful to the development of young boys. So it is not like white men are never the beneficiary of positive discrimination.
Fact is that women tend to score better at math then boys, until a certain age. Does a rise in estrogen kill of brain cells? An observation of teenage girls (curse you judge for taking away my binoculars!) tends to confirm this... then again, teenage boys have trouble chewing gum... and walking? HA! Have you seen a teenage boy try to walk?
Most companies I worked at were male dominated, I work in tech after all. But I also worked for a charity once and there the majority was women (very attractive ones to, that is where they are all hiding). So, even in "office" environments, there are gender separations, not so much along profession but along the type of company. Those women were nice enough to me as a male outsider BUT there was a seperation. Not so much because they refused to discuss female stuff when I was there, but because they did. I was raised by women and so raised to see women as delicate pure innocent creatures or they would hurt me. Talk to females not playing the gentle role on their own turf and "EEEEEK". Before that, as a I nerd I was slightly afraid of women, now I know I was right.
Can a workfloor gender culture have an effect? Duh! But can this be changed? And how?
There is no shortage of smart young girls. There is no shortage of young girls that might consider a tech career. There is a shortage of tech women on the workfloor. Something happens between the age of 10 and 20 that causes a shift.
I am a nerd who plays with model trains, not for the modeling but for the automated controlling of a train network, think of it as robotics for those who can't handle path finding. Sometimes we demonstrate this, at rail modelers conventions. Sometimes wives, girlfriends (HA!) and daughters/sisters are dragged along. They are
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're trying to argue with politically correct liberal idiots with facts. And as we all know facts and reality in general are something that they despise. In their world women and men all have the same wants and desires and behave and think in exactly the same way and all have the same interests.
Of course you never hear them whining about why there are so few men in pre school teaching or nursing or babysitting but then they are such well practised hypocrites.
"Having been the only woman in a CS class, I can assure you that it's not fun"
Oh please. There were some girls on my course and they had a great time.
"It doesn't help that many women do not feel safe in the computer lab at night."
What sort of lab is this? Do they make crack alongside the computers? Or have you just been smoking some?
"f you think that tech is a meritocracy, you're not paying attention. If you think everyone has the same opportunities, and the same encouragement you do, you're not paying attention. If you think that there isn't discrimination against women, you're not paying attention."
I'm male and I work as a programmer. I never had encouragement to do it from anyone , in fact my parents wanted me to go into the family business and didn't understand computers at all. But guess what - I didn't start feeling sorry for myself , start making pathetic excuses for why I couldn't do it and blaming everyone else for my inadequacies like you clearly do, I just did the career I wanted to do. Period.
Grow up.
The brain of men tend to only use one side when working on technical things (computers, , programming, car mechanics, etc...). Women use their two halves. It has been observed that women who enjoy car mechanics for example, have a brain usage pattern similar to men (mostly using one side).
So, first of all, it's a biological thing. There are just less women really interested in technical fields like computer science and programming, just like there are less women whom are car mechanics.
And most women in the field (I don't want to generalize, but it's a a feeling I developed in my CompSci university years and 10 yrs of experience as a software developer) see it as a job and not as a 'passion'.
A couple of months ago I went to a free MongoDB seminar. It was 2 presentations, one about MongoDB, and one about OpenShift from RedHat, a free cloud PaaS, on how to quickly develop mobile applications using the cloud. It was free, free drinks, free pizza, free merchandizing and very interesting . There were about 40 people present in the audience...zero women!
Starting a romance at work is a very bad idea. Both for you, your spouse, your boss and colleagues.
Also, in my experience, environments with a good mix of men and women are less productive, exactly because of flirting, hidden jealousy and dick measuring.
Very interesting. Why aren't more women posting on this topic? I did.
I'm expecting to get modded out anyway. I guess I write like a woman, too.
You're missing the point - all they're trying to do is increase the number of female applicants. They specifically said that they're judging men and women on the same criteria. By explicitly saying they want to welcome women, more women will apply. And if more qualified women apply, they have a better, more diverse pool to pick from, getting them closer to the 50/50 ratio they wanted. It's not about diminishing standards or "reverse discrimination" or what have you.
Male slashdot readers: coming from a female programmer, you may not understand how much it sucks to be a novelty. Before you respond "I would love it if I was the only guy at my job!" I can promise you that you would've gotten sick of it by now. I'm sure that's why there are fewer men in female-dominated professions like nursing. Simply put, it gets uncomfortable, so it becomes self perpetuating. When I was visiting one college, and heard their CS program had something like 10% women, my first thought was "what's wrong with the place that makes all the other women hate it?"
KKK members used to have crazy reasoning to justify their bias, just like the new discriminators of today. Call them whatever you want, progressives, liberals, feminists... Discrimination is what this is. But welcome to America, where it's the age of UN-reason.
How about subsidies for short people in the NBA
What the fuck are you talking about? You think men don't get discouraged from doing things? FUCK. I was told by my first boss that I'd amount to nothing. Get the fuck over yourself. When I work with someone I honestly don't care what hangs off their chest or between their legs. I've worked with some AWESOME women. I've also worked with women that were completely useless at their job or tried to get others to do it for them. Same goes for men. You don't want equality - you want what you think men are getting, which is nothing like what we really are.
You want discouragement. Try being a male that is average or below looking and try getting a date. Try being told that you're suppose to be a wonderful father and contribute half to household and childrearing in the 2hrs/day you see your kids. Try being the only bread winner and if you fuck up your whole family doesn't eat! Try looking at the goddamn suicide rate of males vs females before you start whining about female participation in certain industries.
In my experience many women just don't want to bother with technical details. They're not interested. They don't want to play with code, or with science, or with building techniques. THAT is why they don't succeed. When you do find a woman that is good at what she does and actually has an interest, the stereotypes don't tend to get in the way because they don't fucking let them. Stop being so weak willed and self-partonising. You're doing to yourself exactly what you accuse men of doing to you.
Little boy & Little girl step outside on Christmas Day to play with their new toys. Kids being kids, they start trying to "outcompete" one another on "who did better":
Little Boy says: "Look @ my NEW G.I. Joe w/ the Kung-Fu Grip!"
Little Girl says: "Well, look @ my Barbie and her Ken Doll, with clubhouse, and corvette too"
(Little boy is not done yet...)
Little Boy says: "Ah, but I also have my new Daisy BB gun!"
Little Girl says: "So what - My parents just set aside (insert LARGE dollar amount here) into a trustfund for me!"
(This goes on & on, & the Little Boy is getting dusted @ every turn... he becomes frustrated!)
Little Boy says (as he unzips his fly and pulls out his 'you-know-what'): "Big deal - I have ONE OF THESE, and you don't!"
Little Girl says (pointing to the same general area of her body): "So what? I HAVE ONE OF THESE, & with one of these? I can get ALL OF THOSE I'LL EVER WANT or NEED!"
* MORAL OF THE STORY? Women run men... & they make the choices, not us!
APK
P.S.=> Good for them though I say: Give them the grant! It'll get more girls interested in the field of computer sciences hopefully... which of course means that geeks will finally get to "hook up with" geek-esses in their "natural habitat" (best way to meet someone imo, in a place where you both have 'common-ground/interests' & I don't CARE what anyone says about meeting someone @ work - if you can HANDLE IT RESPONSIBLY & with maturity? It's DOABLE, without hassles)... they BOTH enjoy! apk
My English professor (white, male) was told he would never get into OU's journalism school by his high-school professors and advisers. He did, and he graduated. When he was done with that he went on to accomplish some of the most amazing things most people will never come close to. He, for some reason, decided to walk the entire globe--which resulted in him becoming an internationally published author. He traversed the globe with no money, relying only on the generosity of people he met along the way. To date, only two people have ever been known to do this--and the other is not an author. Oh yeah, his dad thought he was crazy too.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Bloody hell. Now I remember why I got out of IT. :-(
First clue you're not cut out to be a hacker: you have to take hacking classes.
This is one of those attempts to encourage young women to become more involved in areas that they have tended to avoid.
I've been involved in some of these attempts to foster more women into technical fields before I retired. The overlying issue is that there are many more women in the workplace than years past, and many of them are professionals. But they appear to be shunning many of the technical fields. Other fields such as Medical Doctors, Veterinarians, lawyers, MBA's as well as social fields are well represented by females.
And it appears that is just how they like it. When we polled the ladies what their aspirations were, probably half wanted to be lawyers, some doctors, and the rest MBA's - so that correlates well. Over the years, there was 1 girl who wanted to be an engineer.
But now what would be the cause? As popular as it might be to say that the engineering and technical fields were somehow too "male oriented", or that they would be otherwise discriminated against - I don't buy it. Nor do I believe that somehow little girls have been trained by their dolls to shy away from technology. You think that technology is male oriented? Try MBA land.
I think the real reason that young women stay away from the technical fields is that given the working hours, pay, and the harder educational route, they just figured out that it's too big a pain in the ass. Note however that becoming an MD is also a grind, so my idea isn't perfect.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I am a woman and have worked in technology for over 40 years, long before the Internet was even thought of. The opportunities for women in technology have always been there but very few women took advantage of those opportunities. Women have been involved with technology since the beginning. For example, the COBOL programming language was invented around 1959 by Grace Hopper - often called "the mother of the COBOL language". I have never known a time when women were excluded from technology jobs. In technology, companies almost always hire whoever can do the job, whoever has the aptitude and wants to do this work. Women have not always paid equitably but that is another story. In my experience, the men in technology and science tend to be the least sexist and accepting of capable women in these fields. Most women simply have not shown any interest in technology.
Equal rights, OK.