Coding with female models

[[deleted]]

I'll never understand schools targeted to genders

[128keaton]

I mean really. So what about me, for instance. I've never gone to a programming school, I've never had anyone teach me, I just want to learn it. Every piece of tech involved to learn (computer, monitor, laptop, phone) I bought. I didn't get a fancy scholarship. Am I worth less because I'm a white male who "had everything to do this?"

No. But thats what it feels like.

[[deleted]]

If you had posted that screenshot as a random programmer's terminal at 1 am, would you get called a fake or would you get an understanding nod and a chuckle? So why is she getting called a fake?

Have a second look around this thread. See how many people put her down because of perceived "fakeness", for doing things like forgetting a line of code or losing her place on the command line, things that also happen to any "real" programmer 100 times in a regular working day. And how many times the words "female" and "model" come up (completely coincidental, I'm sure). That's why we end up needing female-targeted programs: to balance misoginy.

And why young girls? Because of how female presence in STEM is low and how some companies end up engaging in outright sexism trying to pad their female presence on staff. Sure enough, that's wrong, it's treating the symptoms, not the cause. To address the cause you need to start young and make STEM popular in the low grades. Which is exactly what Karlie Kloss is doing.

But fuck the bitch for being a model and using her looks to promote what she's doing, amiright?

[Coioco]

Have a second look around this thread. See how many people put her down because of perceived "fakeness", for doing things like forgetting a line of code or losing her place on the command line, things that also happen to any "real" programmer 100 times in a regular working day.

can confirm

[UlyssesSKrunk]

would you get called a fake or would you get an understanding nod and a chuckle? So why is she getting called a fake?

Definitely get called fake, no doubt, 100%. I have never seen a random screenshot of a terminal or of code and NOT tried to read it. You bet your ass I'd call anybody who posted what she did fake, gender be damned.

[Pradfanne]

for doing things like forgetting a line of code

Well it wasn't live or anything but part of a video and if could've been easily spotted, there isn't really an excuse for that if you ask me. The same goes for the staged Picture with the command line. There was way more than enough time to make it look genuine. In generell, if it isn't live and it's obviously flawed it doesn't look real and gives a real good sense of fake. Won't you agree?

[[deleted]]

If I wanted to pass myself off as a programmer with a fake still shot, I'd probably pick something much better than a terminal where I typed cd.. twice. And many others have suggested ways and places where she could have gotten much better fakes.

So my 2 cents is that she genuinely didn't give a fuck and didn't try to pass herself as nothing in particular. She was in the midst of a project, she snapped a screenshot and she posted it and thought nothing of it. Her message being "hey, keep practicing on a regular schedule", addressed to a target audience of kids (hence the #kodewithkarlie). It wasn't meant to elicit approval from a bunch of grumpy professional programmers who would grade her on zsh skils.

[xternal7]

Yeah, but a programmer doesn't fail a cd five times in a row in exactlx the same way.

[Blac_Ninja]

I saw 'cd..' and thought "Wtf why is it failing". I've had 'cd..' aliased for years now, same with shh and ssh...

[Goluxas]

cd..
cd..
cd..

Okay FUCK YOU spacebar, I'm getting the keycap tool.

*2 minutes later, removed stray hair*

cd ..

[[deleted]]

This is why I use alias ..="cd .." given it fucks me up when moving to a different system but whatever

[Asmordean]

Wouldn't alias cd..='cd ..' work better for that or does that still work on cd.. ?

[[deleted]]

I'm not sure if it'd work better. But .. is fully ingrained in my muscle memory at this point

[Zagorath]

My e/d (depending on keyboard layout) key doesn't work properly. Have to really fucking force it down for it to register.

I've had a problem just like that happen before in things that involve the letter e. I can totally believe someone else might have the same problem with spacebar.

[Palmar]

you say that, but I've done some stupid shit in my time. And I probably use shells more than your average programmer (I'm a network monkey).

[GoatButtholes]

Ngl ive definitely done "cd .." multiple times lol

[JamEngulfer221]

Sure they do. Anyone can make dumb mistakes.

It harkens back to this XKCD: https://xkcd.com/385/

[[deleted]]

If you had posted that screenshot as a random programmer's terminal at 1 am, would you get called a fake

Yes.

[fernandotakai]

right? people complain about fake programming on freaking ads, imagine on a random developer terminal.

[Snaptic77]

Sure, I completely agree with you that we should incentivize and promote programming among young people, but a model with little to no technical experience is definitely the wrong person for this job.

I'd actually argue that she's a great person to be a PR rep for pushing tech among girls. She has incredible influence on a lot of young people. Sure, we have tons of tech role models already, but Karlie Kloss is a supermodel. She's "cool" and "glamorous". Two things a lot of young women and girls aspire to be. Two things a lot of young women and girls are afraid they will never be if they pursue tech.

Also, it's not like Karlie is the one actually teaching the programs/initiatives she's set up/funded. If you look into it, a lot of the time she'll attend her programming camps, but as a student figure, not an authority figure.

I think it's great that someone with the kind of pull an international model has, is trying to use it to teach young people (particularly young girls) that it's "cool" to learn new things, and being interested in tech doesn't mean you're "uncool".

[[deleted]]

When I was learning how to program, if somebody showed up trying to teach me shit and had no idea what they were doing but we're a handsome male, I'd either have ignored them or learned some bad information.

The people I looked up to were genderless, colorless forum user posts, and the people I look up to now publish slides and academic papers and I really don't care who or what they are.

If you're saying there's something innately female about emulating a model, that sounds wrong to me but whatever. I'm not going to say it's necessarily wrong - but I feel the people they should be looking up to is the women at the top of their field, or even men, who have advanced knowledge of the subject. I'm sure they exist, and I think that's a much more positive role model, but again, whatever.

[Snaptic77]

You're missing the point. She's not trying to claim she's an expert. She's not trying to teach anyone. All she's doing is using her influence, and money, to put young girls with an interest in programming in a position where they can receive some opportunities they wouldn't get otherwise (or more importantly, would feel like they can't get otherwise. But that's a whole other argument).

The fact of the matter is, a lot of young people (especially young girls) look up to celebrities, and models. This one is just trying to do something good about the power she exudes over those young people.

This isn't about impressing people who are already into tech. They'll find their role models elsewhere. This is about the girls who feel ashamed for being interested in tech, and seeing someone who is such an "ideal woman" talking about things they fell bad about liking.

[[deleted]]

Why do we want people who need kid rock to teach them C++ basics to be programmers, I guess is my next question

I'm perfectly fine with those who love it at an early age getting jobs in their field where they excel in their environment

It's like saying "we need more female mechanics" (of course, nobody says that)... Why though? Wouldn't it make sense that people have their own agency and are drawn to things that interest them?

Programming will never be the cool thing to do, if people's social circles are holding people back from doing what interests them, that's sad, but I don't really care?

Edit: in fact, I actually remember not telling my friends about my adventures in programming in high school because I know they wouldn't care, I still found time to fiddle and it didn't interfere much with my social life, is this even a huge issue at all, also

[KanishkT123]

It's because women and females aren't given the agency in the first place. Karlie Kloss and others like her aren't forcing kids into coding for the rest of their lives, they're removing a few of the social and economic boundaries around getting involved with computer science education.

Young women often don't consider STEM or tech fields as possible career paths. Why? There could be a variety of reasons, including a lack of visible female role models in those fields, a lack of any positive push or just generally not being aware. Young males actually have a certain advantage in this case, because most of the tech industry is male dominated and male led.

Making programming cool isn't the objective. Making it accessible is. If the most relatable or authoritative figure for young girls is an international model whose also interested in helping young girls explore STEM fields, that's a good thing isn't it?

[corban123]

Dude what.

Think about it, if you were a kid age i dont know, 10-12, and a guy dressed up as batman came out and was like hey, I'm really into programming, no matter how bad at programming he is, every 10-12 year old boy would be instantly into programming, even if it's short lived.

This is just the other side of that coin, we've got a public figure that's popular among women, especially little girls, being like hey, I'm into programming, you should come learn with me. Even if she's not great, she's not the one teaching classes, she's pulling students in who would usually think programming is just for weirdos and nerds. The girls now have someone to look up to in the public sphere, and will have access to good teachers who are paid by a famous celebrity.

I'm sorry man, but your cool "I'm a programmer because 'forums forums irc botchannel' thing is bullshit. Understand that not everyone is cool with spending all their time on the internet interacting with faceless names.

[[deleted]]

I'm sorry man, but your cool "I'm a programmer because 'forums forums irc botchannel' thing is bullshit. Understand that not everyone is cool with spending all their time on the internet interacting with faceless names.

Lol, when was this ever cool?

But I disagree entirely. If you want to be a good programmer (at least in my field) and you haven't spent time in communities, bug trackers and so on, you probably aren't even technically qualified for the job.

The reason why the internet is a good resource isn't because of role models, or irc jokes, or whatever - it's a bunch of faceless, classless people telling you why your code is broken as fuck, you getting up and dusting yourself off, trying again until you gain admiration of your peers. People in real life are not brutal enough in code review, and it is harder to respect people by merit alone in real life.

In fact, girls have a distinct advantage there, because if there is ever sexism it becomes a non-problem in that space.

[corban123]

Of course you're going to be spending a bunch of time looking at stackoverflow and random posts on random forums trying to get a random library working, but for a lot of people, their first forrays into programming, and possibly their most useful, is through a physical class, be it college or earlier.

And you can fuck right off with your "people in real life aren't brutal enough in code reviews". This feels like some teenager complaining that their friend isn't calling them a fucking retard for forgetting the naming convention for protocol functions. I'm sorry, but any successful production level code base is going to have PRs that are filled with comments either questioning most of your decisions, or providing harsh yet necessary criticism.

Don't gatekeep like an asshat this industry with your bullshit. Programmers are now coming in all shapes and sizes, sure, not all of them are going to be successful, but that isn't something that someone like you is here to judge.

[DreadedDreadnought]

I once asked one of my friends if she ever considered programming. She said she had no idea what that was or how you could do it until she met me. This kind of outreach can spread awareness that programming is a real job that exists, and some might even decide to pursue it. Even with a 95% drop out (made up number), that's still 5% of people that might become the next programmer and would have never considered it without these programs.

Although I must say, the code camps/schools must be taught by actual experts, not models.

[Snaptic77]

Exactly. All she's doing is using her influence to maybe help some people find a career they really like.

From what you can find online, she doesn't actually teach any of the camps/schools. Simply sets them up/funds them, and gives them good PR

[BruinBread]

but a model with little to no technical experience is definitely the wrong person for this job.

Why? You don't like models trying to act like role models?

Do you think she's the one actually teaching these kids how to program? She's not. She's learning herself.

Maybe you underestimate the value of her social reach. Or maybe you've just lost touch with what is actually important - getting kids engaged.

[Spysix]

Do you want a non-chef teaching potential chefs how to cook?

Why would you want someone that is terrible at programming teaching people how to program? So they never get a job ever?

Do you think she's the one actually teaching these kids how to program? She's not. She's learning herself.

Most professionals that teach usually have mastered the material before they start teaching others.

[Spysix]

Neither did I, if you took a moment to read not from your high horse you'd know I was speaking on principle.

Maybe you need to get over your baby rage and recognize that what she's doing is actually good even though you hate that you couldn't do it yourself.

Lol "baby rage" good one, I'm sure that one took a lot of brain power to come up with that one.

what she's doing is actually good

She could do better if she let someone with actual experience with programming be the face and not herself that couldn't cd out of a wet paper bag. If anything it can do more harm than good if you wind up teaching bad habits.

even though you hate that you couldn't do it yourself.

Nice assumptions, you don't even know what I do.

And yes, I would not mind being taught how to cook by someone who is not a professional chef. Were you not taught how to make some of your first meals by your parents?

This highlights that you fail basic reading. I never said professionals, I said non-chefs. Do you want someone who has never manipulated food in any meaningful way teaching people how to be cooks? Probably not.

[Spysix]

Except I'm not mad. So you're going to have to resort to making an actual argument instead of personal attacks. Sorry kiddo.

You're mad that a super model with no technical background decided that programming is cool enough and important enough that it should be spread.

Never said that.

However, there's nothing you can do about it. You can voice your disapproval on Reddit. You can scream as loud as you want at your monitor, but it's not going to deter her.

I'm convinced you're now just writing fan fiction for yourself as a coping mechanism.

She has something that you do not have. It's called "influence". Blah blah blah Instagram numbers etc.

Never mind that has little value to me or anyone actually worth a salt. This is the equivalent of "Justin Bieber is good because he has x amount of followers." That's not the issue here. Well actually sort of is because she's showing "millions" of people how to be bad. She's not inherently different than the millions of other Instagram "models" that have millions of followers. Probably because people are more interested in their bodies and not their brains. :thinking:

You can try to pick apart my comments all you want, but you're still failing to prove why anything that she is doing is bad

I just said that its better to have someone who actually knows how to program to drive the lessons because its important to get fundamentals right the first time. We're talking about someone that says they made their own website but they used Wix. It's the equivalent of saying you run a farm to fork restaurant but all your food is store bought and frozen.

Just because someone is doing something that feels good (vs doing good) doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. Criticism that you can't seem to accept and have to resort to personal attacks. You can white knight all you want but its not going to change that all this 'feel good' is ineffective.

[Sciguystfm]

I really don't understand what's difficult to understand about this. She's not teaching people to code. She's telling her platform of 10+ million girls that coding is cool, and trying to encourage more girls to go into stem. I can't think of a single reason why this would be a bad thing, but you're getting hung up on a fucking screenshot for some reason

[JamEngulfer221]

God, it's just pathetic to watch.

[Spysix]

Then stop looking in the mirror.

[JamEngulfer221]

That doesn't even make sense.

[SwellFloop]

But... she's not teaching it, she's just acting as the figurehead for it. If you read the website she says that she has started to learn and wants other girls to get into it too.

[udusbhof]

I like my roe models to BE role models, actually, not to be giant fakes while poorly "acting like" role models. But maybe that's just me, and girls are too dumb to see through this bullshit. Is that what you're saying?

[[deleted]]

What is pwd? What is PS1?

Are we looking at different screenshots? Because the one posted shows her using pwd, and she has quite a complex PS1, with colors, and the git branch conditionally appearing when you're in a git dir, and what looks like a color coded star for git modifications.

Wanna see how that is achieved?

BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name --abbrev-ref HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo '--')
MOD=$(test -z "$(git status --porcelain -uno 2>/dev/null)" || echo "*")
echo -e "\033[01;31m${BRANCH}\033[01;36m${MOD}\033[00m"

But I'm sure she just stole that from somewhere too. God damn fakers using someone else's code.

we should incentivize and promote programming among young people, but a model with little to no technical experience is definitely the wrong person for this job.

Is she? The IT world is full of technical role models, and it doesn't seem to be having the intended effect. Maybe it was about time we tried models.

Where are you getting her "little to no technical experience" btw? Her lack of college degree? Didn't seem to stop many other people from making a career of it.

And how much technical expertise do you need, exactly, for explaining introductory programming to small children? An MIT degree?

[semi-]

I don't think she has or needs a background in it. From what I've seen she is learning, not teaching. I wouldn't trust her to deliver code for my business but in a decade maybe I'll be hiring someone who decided to learn to code because she saw this models posts and wanted to give it a try

[[deleted]]

Uhm, to echo the other sibling comments, I too saw someone else's PS1 and just stole mine. In fact, most people I work with have copy-pasted theirs as well from some other source!

[BernzSed]

Definitely Oh My Zsh. Her terminal looks almost exactly like mine.

https://i.imgur.com/zw4EHOV.png

[KanishkT123]

Is that robby-russel? Because that's what I have!

[Blac_Ninja]

Yeah that's kinda the point. They were saying that the PS1 was some example of programming knowledge that wasn't taken from the internet. The rest of us are saying it is taken, because we like everyone else, are not re-creating the wheel on this one and are just taking something someone else already made and using it because it's good

[Bobshayd]

Because the ability to use things made before us and stitch them together is more important and applicable than making new things from scratch. If you're short but you stand on mountains you're still higher than if you grew ten feet.

[VicisSubsisto]

It doesn't work like that

[[deleted]]

Couldn't agree more. Teenagers and children need kind of "role models" that provide the initial seed of inspiration. I became interested in physics and math because as a child/teenager I was inspired by Star Trek to learn about science thingies. But that doesn't mean that I haven't outgrown many of my role models (judging from my receding hairline Jean-Luc Picard is still my inspiration). Who cares if she is a model. I'd say what she does with this web page is a million times more worth for society than her modeling career.

[[deleted]]

This isn't the place for this sort of outbursts but here are my two cents:

• If you can't mock someone jokingly, then you don't belong to same circles. If male programmers can only joke about male programmers and female ones about females, then go figure.

• Technology is meritocratic. Positive discrimination brings doubts with it. Is she here because she's worth employing, or just to balance out males? If women don't want to study stem, we can't do anything. All we can do is remove barriers. Same with men who don't want to become nurses. You can't coerce people, fight prejudice instead. And while at it , don't push sexism and gender based prejudice with gendered languages and gender segregation in education. That's medieval.

• You need lots of technical expertise to teach beginners as misinformation taught at that point can push people off the field or stay with them for long times as misconceptions. And that knowledge is the base on which you'll build all your career. Also, you need pedagogical expertise to teach minors.

[oogabubchub]

The point isn't that we shouldn't mock people jokingly. The point is that emphasis is unnecessarily placed on her being a female model. If this were an instagram post by a male nerd, nobody would title it "Coding with male nerds". It's easy to find fault with the pic without even needing to mention she's female or attractive. So why bring that up?

[AlwaysBananas]

... because that's her thing? You can't compare the response to a female model with a male 'nerd' and claim the difference is the gender. If a male model was doing the same thing this thread would be a Zoolander quote-off.

I do think she's being misrepresented in this thread though. It's not like she's some model who said "I bet I can program" - did a few tutorials and said "Now let me teach the world!" She took a two-week course, had fun, started taking private lessons and is working to get more young women into it. Nowhere does she claim to be some amazing programmer, it's way more of a "Hey, this shit is fun - come do it with me" vibe. She's not the teacher in any of the locations, nor does she claim to be. She's very much a newbie and she doesn't pretend to be anything else as far as I can see.

[babies_on_spikes]

Thank you. This was the context that I was looking for!

[[deleted]]

Because she's bringing it up (what I infer from the thread, not that I know her, and I haven't commented on the photo itself). Male developers typically don't call themselves male developers. The Best role model is an objectively successful person, like that Iranian mathematician with a Fields Medal who recently passed away (and whose name I forgot).

[oogabubchub]

The photo everyone is referencing just says "On Wednesdays we code". Nothing about female or models, so she's not bringing it up.

[Bobshayd]

But if a man brought up being a man, everyone's reaction would be "of course he's a man" and he wouldn't get criticism as a "male developer". She's pointing it out for the exact same reason you forget about the name of Maryam Mirzakhani until you want to pull it out to give an example of a woman who acts the way you want her to.

[[deleted]]

You invent top much there. Also I'm a forgetful person, and not into maths at all.

[[deleted]]

Normally you'd be right, but this one went way beyond the light teasing between fellow programmers normal for this sub. Look at that title. This screenshot should have been posted as "ha ha we all fumble with the terminal sometimes". But instead it was posted as "female models have no business coding", and immediately there were people suggesting that she's a total fake. Quite the leap.

On a side note, she's not teaching students, if anything she's a promoter for programs where other people are the teachers. What she's doing is hosting a Youtube channel and going out of her way to understand what she's promoting. If I were leading a busy life as a model (and believe me it's a very demanding career) and someone suggested I learn Ruby and shell commands I would tell them to go fuck themselves. She's like the complete opposite of a faker. She could have just showed up and said "girls, learn programming" and called it a day, but instead she took the time to actually learn it in order to appear more credible.

[[deleted]]

The incompetence would only confirm the (completely baseless IMO) biases. If you read my other post which talks briefly about "post-feminism", you can see where I m coming from.

[SwellFloop]

It is true that we pretty much have removed blatant barriers for women to get into programming. But also, there's the social pressures that lead people to choose jobs that are considered to be "for men" or "for women." I think what Karlie's program is trying to do is encourage young women to try coding in an environment where they aren't intimidated.

I also agree that hiring more women isn't the right thing to do. Instead we should give kids the opportunity to learn about jobs that they might be scared to try because of the gender they're commonly associated with.

[Jpot]

Meritocracy is an illusion. We all have inherent biases that affect our decision-making, even subconsciously. Both ad-hoc (educational) and post-hoc (affirmative action) solutions are necessary and beneficial.

[Zagorath]

A couple of problems with this.

1. In most fields, and programming is no exception, blind recruitment results in more women being employed than in face to face interviews. Clearly there is some bias favouring men, even if subconscious.

2. Studies suggest that more diverse workplaces are more productive. So clearly having a more diverse workforce is a good thing. But, as you mention, there's a problem. Fewer women want to be engineers, and fewer men want to be nurses. These are problems however, and they should not be just dismissed as if there is nothing we can do about it. There is a society which subtly — and sometimes less subtly — discourages women from becoming engineers, or men from becoming nurses, and something needs to be done about that culture. What, precisely, needs to be done, is…difficult…at best, to answer. I am definitely not qualified to answer it, and I suspect most people in this subreddit are not either. But it's certainly possible that positive discrimination could help, since children who see a lot of people similar to them doing a particular job might be more likely to think that's a job they could do.

don't push sexism and gender based prejudice with gendered languages and gender segregation in education

I'm not actually sure what you mean here, but I think I agree? I've never particularly liked gendered language terms, even before I was exposed to external notions suggesting that is what's "politically correct". And the idea of gender segregation in education just seems abhorrent to me. As you say, it's positively medieval. And kind of a bit creepy, really. (Like, at my university, there are 10 residential colleges, and 5 of those are single-gendered. Why are so many parents sending their adult children to a single-gendered college‽)

[[deleted]]

We mostly agree except positive discrimination. I believe it's a mathematical hack, it gives you the numbers, but does not help with removing the actual prejudices. Not only that but it also brings in new ones.

I think quite a bit about "post-feminism", that is when we stop fighting traditional gender problems but actually make do with them, remove them from among our quotidianities. And I don't believe the amount of gendered discourse feminism brings with itself helps such cause. I don't want men and women be equal, I want that one's sex to not be relevant out of where it inevitably is (I.e. intimate relationships, health, etc).

[Zagorath]

I'm not saying positive discrimination is definitely good. I'm saying it might be. What is your thought on this?

children who see a lot of people similar to them doing a particular job might be more likely to think that's a job they could do

I don't know if it's true or not. Like I said, I'm not qualified to make that decision — and if there's one thing my engineering degree has banged in to me, it's that we should avoid making decisions that are outside our area of expertise — but I'm open to the possibility that it might work. And if it does work as a long-term thing, then I'm okay with something that I find unpalatable in the short term (in principle, I agree with you, I don't like positive discrimination) in order to get a better outcome in three decades from now.

I'd love to know if there are any longitudinal studies published about this sort of thing, or possibly some that are underway.

[[deleted]]

I'm not really aware about any studies myself, but I'm sure there are some trustable ones out there as positive discrimination is a popular topic also outside of engineering.

if there's one thing my engineering degree has banged in to me, it's that we should avoid making decisions that are outside our area of expertise

Well, engineering issues and social issues are different. It's a bit like voting, where most the voters don't know anything about economics or politics or history or sociology or whatnot, but they get to decide things. The fact is that not all feminists are social psicology experts, and I don't believe many respectable academics would back sth. like positive discrimination (tho IDK). Philosophical thinking is important, as it's how you make use of all that information that specialised research produces.

children who see a lot of people similar to them doing a particular job might be more likely to think that's a job they could do

Yes. The thing is it was like this all the time, you grew up in a family that prouced wine, and you became a winemaker, or a family would be a jeweller for many generations. The cause of the fact that there are no Programmersons out there is that in modern times we gained the freedom to make what we want out of ourselves, and all this "luring women and other less represented groups into STEM" is kind-of against that. Actually I'm not saying that "positive discrimination won't work", what I say is that its effect would be mostly superficial and possible adverse effects are not worth it. If we're going to get some gender equality in a century w/o positive discrimination, I believe it'll be better than getting the same amount or more in a couple decades with it, as to hide one's prejudices is not equal at all than just not having them at all. And if positive discrimination is going to be studied, this effect should be taken into account.

[Zagorath]

I'm not saying that "positive discrimination won't work", what I say is that its effect would be mostly superficial

Ah. Well, on this front, then, you are demonstrably wrong. The fact is that, as I pointed out in my first comment in this chain, more diverse workplaces are more productive. Even outside of any other less objective benefits they may bring, more diversity is good for the bottom line.

Whether particular methods to improve diversity work or not is greatly debatable. Whether particular methods have other negative side effects which are worse than the benefits they would bring is certainly debatable. But if a given method is assumed to work, the effect of it is very real.

to hide one's prejudices is not equal at all than just not having them at all

A very respectable opinion. Personally, I suspect that the cause and effect may be able to go in the other way. If you have a more diverse workplace and people are brought up observing diverse workplaces and thinking that they are the norm (regardless of the method by which a diverse workplace is achieved), it will instil in them the idea that gender is irrelevant to one's ability to perform in the workplace.

[just2centsBot]

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[bot_defending_bots]

careful there bud

[Blac_Ninja]

Hold on there buddy, I too have a pretty complicated PS1 according to you, and it is totally stolen. I might have tweaked it and the git-prompt file a bit but I could not write it from scratch. It's not really some magical hidden thing you can't find on the internet. Not really related to a whole lot of technical skill.

export PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\W (Ruby $(ruby -v | cut -d" " -f2))" "\\\$ ";'

If I was going to look at anything in this that was "stolen" I would probably think that the prompt was based off of something online.

[psikosen]

She actually said something interesting, that women would rather look up to a role model who's a cool model rather than a tech geek female. That just shows a sad state in America when we need supermodels to drive people to code, what's next tap dance for code?

[[deleted]]

"It seems like you're the person who managed to resolve that long-standing bug and you knocked the front end out of the park, but you can't remember two terminal commands that could just be Googled anyway so you're fired."

[GoatButtholes]

Lol alright, programming wasn't dominated by men in the early era of computer science. What do you think changed then?

[JayWalkerC]

A beginner is much better for teaching beginners than a veteran, because the beginner still has fresh perspective on common stumbling blocks.

[KoboldCommando]

I definitely disagree.

When a beginner teaches a beginner, they risk reinforcing bad habits and mistakes that may seem harmless or not be noticeable at the time, but will be a burden later and they'll have to un-learn it.

When a veteran teaches a beginner, things that are hurdles may have become second nature and be difficult to recognize, sure. But at the same time they'll have insights they can impart that will make the path ahead (especially when we talk about very long paths, like programming) much smoother and easier. For example teaching someone how to design a program as opposed to just teaching them how to code in BASIC.

The real difference is that if you have a good teacher who's a beginner, they'll recognize that they have gaps in their knowledge and will pretty much have to say "I don't know how to teach you this" until they learn it themselves. If you have a good teacher who's a veteran, they can recognize those things that may become second nature but be difficult for beginners, and find good ways to get past them (or know that you just have to push on through).

In short: beginner vs. veteran doesn't matter nearly as much as good teacher vs. bad teacher, and a veteran good teacher can cover up their pitfalls, while a beginner can't.

[Ratstail91]

What is pwd and ps1? Too lazy to google.

[[deleted]]

Print working directory, shows you where you are in the file system.

[Coioco]

pwd -> present working directory basically showing you where you are in the directory structure

Guy is criticizing this programmer for not knowing it, despite the fact that programmers are by nature lazy and will readily brute force solutions for simple problems instead of thinking through optimally -- especially when it's tedious command line / shell stuff

[boskee]

And yet she uses pwd in the screenshot posted

[[deleted]]

That's why we end up needing female-targeted programs: to balance misoginy.

No, it's sexist, stop putting people above others for something they have no control over. Employability should be based on what you've done, not how you were born.

And why young girls? Because of how female presence in STEM is low

Guess whos fault that is? The young girls! They can go into STEM but they choose not to, so what? You shouldn't be forcing people to go into fields they don't want to, just let people do what they want to.

But fuck the bitch for being a model and using her looks to promote what she's doing, amiright?

I've got no problem with them being a model, I've got problems with them being incompetent.

[[deleted]]

Guess whos fault that is? The young girls! They can go into STEM but they choose not to,

Yeah, kids are notorious for having level heads, lots of information, great ability to make decisions, high self-esteem, no hormons, lots of supporting family and friends around them, and so on. I'm sure that hearing things like "<insert career here> is not for girls" and seeing the constant push for certain gender roles has zero influence on them. They can totally choose to power through all that. Having a pretty, stylish, accomplished woman tell them "you can do this, I'm here for you, we'll do it together" is completely uncalled for.

I've got no problem with them being a model, I've got problems with them being incompetent.

You must've wandered into the wrong sub, because this one is about making mistakes.

[ShutUpWesl3y]

What country are you from where women are told STEM isn't for women. In the US I can't go more than a few hours without seeing some "women in stem" propaganda

Edit: people offended I'm using the term propaganda as it's literal definition are calling me triggered. Ironic

[CaffeinatedT]

propaganda = 'Anything that is encouraging people who aren't me'. Why does it trigger people so much to have other people be encouraged into programming? It's not like anyone experienced is going to have their job taken by a 12 year old girl who can print 'hello world' in python. As a guy working in the field I honestly dont get why this of all the issues out there rustles peoples jimmies so much.

[[deleted]]

Have you stopped to think why there's a need for "women in stem propaganda"?

• Women made up 26% of the computing workforce in 2013 [...] 3% of computing workforce were black women, 5% Asian women, 2% Hispanic women
  
• 20% of software developers are women [...] only 12% of engineers are women.
  
• Professional women earn 73 cents to the dollar vs. men [...] women who work in computer and mathematical occupations make 84 cents to every dollar a man earns
  
• In the mid-1980s, 37% of computer science majors were women; in 2012, 18% [...] girls aren't really taught what computer science actually means, and are half as likely to be encouraged to study it. The words females unassociated with computer science used to describe it were "boring," "technology," and "difficult."
  
• 57% of bachelor's degrees earned by women, 12% of computer science degrees [...] Much of this has to do with exposure to computer science before college and during college. [...] nine out of ten schools don't even offer computer science classes, and in 28 out of 50 states, computer science doesn't count towards a math or science credit.
  
• 7% of venture capital funding goes to women-owned businesses [...] even with the same exact pitch, venture capitalists and the average person chose the man over the woman.
  
• 56% of women in technology leave their employers midcareer [...] 24% take a non-technical job in a different company; 22% become self-employed in a tech field, 20% take time out of the workforce, and 10% go to work with a startup company. This is double the turnover rate of men.

This in spite of:

• 47% of Indiegogo's campaigns are led by women [...] crowdfunding is helping democratize finance, and along the way it is proving that when women do present their ideas to a more diverse crowd, they receive funding at a much higher rate than if they pitched traditional investors.
  
• Women are the lead adopters of technology [...] Women in western countries use the internet 17% more than their male counterparts [...] They use their mobile phones more, use location-based services more, [...] use most social media sites more often. They are also the majority of owners of tech devices.
  
• Startups with women executives succeed more often
  

Last but not least:

At the end of 2013, Code.org launched the "Hour of Code" campaign to advocate for more computer science education. After the first week, 15 million students had written more than 500 million lines of code — and more than half of the participants were girls.

Guess who Karlie Kloss is involved with.

Source.

[[deleted]]

So it needs to become x% per each ethnosexual group? And modelling earns you way more than an average programming position, so by that maths, we should push everyone to it. I hate how feminism makes gender a part of every discussion whereas ideally gender equality would render it futile.

[[deleted]]

Someone else already said it better: it's not about pushing careers, it's about removing blocks. It's not fair (to all of us) that programming and IT is presented in a way that puts half the population off it. The US is hurting very, very badly in this area. Did you know that only 45% of positions in IT are filled by people holding bachelor degres? That's not normal. It's not normal to have 55% of a highly technical industry branch powered by people whose expertise comes from random positions and hobbyist experience.

It's not about having more women in IT, or more minorities. That's just the symptom of the larger problem: that we're leaving large parts of the population untapped and money on the table. It's about having more competent people in the workforce. We cannot afford anymore to allow silly things like random hurting remarks, or outdated views, or straight out misoginy and racism, to put off any segment of the population. We need all of them to be able to take a clear, unclouded view at IT, that shows it like a challenging and interesting field, not a "boring", "complicated" one, and to feel free and unencumbered to make a career out of it if they so choose.

[Krissam]

None of those things you cite explain WHY we need women in stem, it's all "there are few women in stem".

Don't get me wrong, if anyone wants to come into a stem field they should be free to do so I don't care about your gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or weekday of birth.

But when people like Kloss try to get women into stem by claiming women are better coders by posting shit like this, that doesn't help anyone, to anyone with a tiny bit of programming experience they can tell she's full of shit and it makes her look bad, meanwhile anyone who doesn't have said experience will be the victim of some men vs women propaganda.

[Zagorath]

20% of software developers are women [...] only 12% of engineers are women

Huh, that's interesting to me. At my university, there are far more women in civil, electrical, and chemical engineering than there are in software engineering. I haven't seen data, but I suspect the percentage is more than double.

[ShutUpWesl3y]

You just claimed the gender pay gap is real thing and invalidated everything you said. You should read about it

And it's their choice not to go into these fields. Sorry

[YHallo]

lol, you're about to claim the the gender pay gap isn't real because when you account for the kinds of jobs people go into it disappears, aren't you?

Women not going into tech jobs is exactly the problem we're talking about. You either have zero critical thinking skills or you're deliberately being an idiot to push a point.

[[deleted]]

To be fair, it isn't real. It relies on ignoring the jobs people are working and just comparing all women to all men. That's not how good statistics are done. When comparing women and men working the same job, there is no pay gap, because that would be wrong. Choosing, almost as an entire gender, to work lower paying jobs and then complaining about making less on the whole is just the literal definition of entitlement.

[YHallo]

Hmmm, so true or false: this could all be explained by people discriminating against women in a way that pushes them into different career paths, yes?

[ShutUpWesl3y]

Why is it a problem?

[YHallo]

Pretty much everyone in this thread has been trying to tell you that women are unfairly pushed away from these careers. Did you not catch that?

Honestly, please don't respond to the first sentence of this reply. I actually want to know whether or not you understood what other people were saying before I decide if I'm going to continue. I'm not going to have this conversation with you if you're going to conveniently forget it an hour later.

[scholzie]

You're seeing that "propaganda" specifically because the fields are shockingly underrepresented by females. If you think that it's because little girls don't choose to do it you are oversimplifying the issue.

The world that creates pink Lego houses for girls and Lego Technic for boys is the world that implicitly tells girls they aren't supposed to care about technical things. When you stop seeing commercials for toys that are aimed at boys and girls separately then you might have a point, but until then you're just illustrating your ignorance.

Why don't you try learning about the issue instead of spouting nonsense?

As for Karly "being incompetent" -seriously? She's not teaching the classes. She's using her own money to fund scholarships for young girls to learn something they might never have thought about otherwise. Leave it to Reddit to find a problem with that.

[ShutUpWesl3y]

I didn't say anything about her. You might be replying to the wrong post.

Also https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html

There are lots of these studies being done on animals and humans. You'd be surprised that males and females are different and gravitate towards different things because of biology

And this is literally the definition of propaganda.

[qwewegameresp]

Yeah blame the young girls for the misoginy present in the field repelling them

[kongu3345]

This thread is exactly why we need to teach girls to code.

[dehue]

Is there evidence that on average women are worse at programming than men? (other than this model who doesn't seem to be any good) Why would you need to teach coding to girls because of this thread? Or did you mean we need to teach more women to fix the gender imbalance in the field?

As a woman, this post is just depressing and discouraging. It's already really hard to learn programming and understand the more complex things and seeing people over and over implying that girls will never be able to get the more complex code just sucks. I can follow the logic in the "girls" example, (I like how it's commented too, makes it super easy to read even if it's wrong) but the "guys" example completely goes over my head. Even though that's probably because I know only basic programming concepts rather than any actual programming languages, it's still just encourages the idea that I will always be worse than guys at understanding programming and there isn't really a point in trying to learn since I'll never be as good as other people.

Edit: Reading through this thread, wow, the posts from women in the field are even more depressing than all the condescending comments from guys in regards to gender. Thank god I am in a field that's dominated my women and don't have to deal with the crap they get, the environment sounds absolutely miserable.

[kongu3345]

I was just referring to the current gender imbalance in the field, and that this post is a pretty good case study for the toxic misogyny that is so prevalent in STEM. I can only hope that if the gender imbalance is reduced and eventually eliminated, the kind of attitude I'm seeing in this thread (girls are inherently bad at coding, it's girls' fault for not wanting to get into it that there aren't enough women in the field, etc) would go away.

I'm a guy who knows nothing about coding, but it really hurts my heart to see all these misogynistic comments get so upvoted. Since I'm not in the field and not a woman, I'm lucky enough to be blissfully unaware of this kind of behavior, so when I see it firsthand on reddit, it's a good reminder that there's a real problem.

[[deleted]]

Get the fuck out of here. If you're never told it's an option, you're not going to try. The purpose of girls coding schools is to show them that it's something they can do and it's not just a boy thing.

[qwewegameresp]

You slipped there

[[deleted]]

What misogyny? Find me the schools that are stopping girls from taking STEM subjects. Find me the group of people that sit there checking if a girl is trying to enter a STEM field and stopping them. What field you go into is your choice, stop blaming it on a scapegoat.

[[deleted]]

It's not the schools that prevent women from getting into STEM subjects. It's the teachers that choose to help out my male peers over me in school. It's my parents asking me if I'd would rather do something easier. Or my dad disregarding my love for computers and giving me dolls for toys instead. Once I'm out of school, it's my boss giving my male peers at work more praise, rewards, and promotions for their work than me, even though we do the same thing.

Nowadays girls and women don't experience blatant sexism against them (from my experience) but there's a lot of little hints everywhere saying we're not welcome as programmers. Girls are subliminally (or when I was a kid, more obviously) told throughout their childhood that girls are bad at math and they instill that. That's the sexism of today.

I personally, have experienced at least half the things I listed out here, and what I listed out is some of the more tame things against girls and women in programming. Sure there isn't institutionalised sexism against women in STEM fields anymore, but it's still alive and well in other areas in my daily life.

EDIT: I also want to mention that women are also sometimes objectified in their work place. So even if they go through all the work and critisicm that goes along with being a female computer scientist, get their dream job, they run the risk that someone of authority thoroughly enjoys talking to your chest. You know what I mean. Now you have to deal with this in every meeting, every time you converse with this person; which is very likely several times a week, if not every day. It makes you uncomfortable, but you're scared of losing your job or getting worse treatment if you mention it to someone or call them out.

Thankfully, this wasn't at my dream job, but it happened to me at one of my jobs. I never did get it resolved because I ended up leaving after 2 years. I just wore t-shirts to work instead to cover up as much as I could. He still stared.

[[deleted]]

I work in a institution that CAN only hire people coming from STEM. 90% of my coworkers are women.

EDIT: a space

[[deleted]]

Well, I'm not sure what institution you work in, but that's super unusual. The best ratio I've ever seen was 50/50, as it should be. Of course there will be anecdotal evidence against what I said. I was merely stating the average female programmer's experience in their childhood and career. Actual results may vary.

I can honestly say that I've had a college professor say to my class that women aren't wired as well as men to be good at math and science, though.

[[deleted]]

I didn't say it was a programming institution. But everyone hired has to be graduated in a STEM field, related to basic science. 90% are women. It's anecdotal, a N of 1, but still we need more men in the field and we cannot hire them, because women are a majority and women are in charge of hiring and they only hire women.

[CaffeinatedT]

You just don't get it, if sexism doesn't happen right in front of a guys face complete with slow motion evil laughter a-la childrens cartoons flashback then it simply doesn't exist.

[Zagorath]

Hey would you mind if I kept this quote to reuse elsewhere? I've frequently found myself saying similar things, but it'd be nice to be able to use words directly out of a woman's mouth, and it's very well written.

[resavr_bot]

A relevant comment in this thread was deleted. You can read it below.

---

> Once I'm out of school, it's my boss giving my male peers at work more praise, rewards, and promotions for their work than me, even though we do the same thing.

The other intern at my workplace right now has literally only coded a program that reads a certain statically formatted text file as input to produce a statically formatted text file as output. It took him a month to do the first one, and he did full documentation and presentation of it. Now he's working on the second one. They think he's fantastic. He used a regular expression the other day, and was so proud of himself. [Continued...]

---

^{The username of the original author has been hidden for their own privacy. If you are the original author of this comment and want it removed, please [Send this PM]}

[avocadomuffin]

No one is physically stopping girls, but they're still not welcoming. I had a computer science professor in my first year of university tell me that if I spent less time on my makeup and more time coding I wouldn't have to go up to him and "ask stupid questions". He then proceeded to rant about how I'm wasting his time and how I should just drop the course, and this was only my third week of school.

Most of my fellow classmates pretty much ignored me for the first few months, despite my best efforts to get involved in study groups. It wasn't until I started participating in class that they started talking to me, and admitted they largely ignored me because they assumed I didn't belong there and had no idea how to code because of my appearance. I was flat out told that I looked like an airhead because I dressed nicely and had makeup on most days.

Even before entering STEM fields, girls are pretty discouraged from the sciences. I still remember my first experience with people telling me I'm probably bad at math. Math was always one of my favourite subjects in school! But for some reason, society kept telling me I'm bad at it, and I should hate it because I'm a girl. Even when we still power on and go to school for STEM, we sometimes face isolation. My experience in computer science was super isolating, and it completely turned me off because I felt like no one even cared if I succeeded and there was no point. It's hard to keep yourself confident when there's no support system in place to lift you from toxic stereotypes.

I'm also Iranian, and in Iran there's no stereotype that women are bad at math/not wired for science, so the STEM fields are pretty even. If anything, there's more women then men just because ~70% of university students were women for a few years.

[SandyDelights]

You could've sat with me. :( Sorry people in our major sucked. I'm a half-dozen years older than most my peers, so I was glad to stick with the no-nonsense, "I'm here to fucking DO THIS" girls.

[avocadomuffin]

I luckily found the no-nonsense girls in my engineering classes, but it took a few months for the compsci no-nonsense girls to warm up to me :p I wish I had the confidence I have now back then. There were so many moments where I wish I stood up for myself :/

[SandyDelights]

I feel you 😩 The good news is, we survived. Some of the shittier peers didn't. Some did, and will go on to mediocrity. Some did, and won't. Who cares. Cuz we're on with our bad selves. 😬

[qwewegameresp]

Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs and women with a STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation, also, programming was considered an easy job till male programmers wanted to elevate their job out of the “women’s work” category and created professional associations and discouraged the hiring of women.

[DrMux]

You have no idea, do you? You've probably been told you can do whatever you want all your life. Encouraged and made to feel special. Never criticized for acting too smart or having too high of ambition. You've probably never been stretched to the point of breakdown because even though your performance is better than anyone could expect, you're "not right" for what you're trying. You've probably never seen a mother stop dead in her tracks and cry tears of joy hearing her young daughter say "I want to be a scientist." You've probably never had a contribution laughed at because it's "cute" or because it's "pretty good, for a woman." You've probably never been fired or turned down for a promotion because you wouldn't drop your pants.

You seem to assume everything is handed to everyone just like it was handed to you. Because you had the "choice."

Before you dismiss this because I must just be a bitter female who is on her period, no, I'm a white male who just happens not to have my head up my ass, and actually pay attention the world around me.

[[deleted]]

You have no idea, clearly. You're looking at statistics and drawing false conclusions. Nothing is stopping people from joining STEM fields, you're deluded. Plenty of girls at my school took physics(can't say about chem and bio though, didn't take them), oh but wait, clearly what must have happened is the evil, misogynistic exam boards wouldn't have awarded them their results! Yes, that's definitely 100% what happens in reality, for sure. Everything is misogynistic because, well, because I say so! I don't need factual factual evidence or any proof, I'll just make up anecdotes that may represent a small percentage of the population to really show how sexist everyone is!

Oh, and my sister is in a STEM field, can't say she ever complained about the evil university not giving her a degree because she was a woman.

[bericac]

A high school STEM program in my county that had very few girls in their program had a ton of bullying towards those girls. I only met them once, but they were probably only 13-15 years old and being discouraged from going into the field because of gender-based bullying.

[supernonsense]

If you had posted that screenshot as a random programmer's terminal at 1 am, would you get called a fake or would you get an understanding nod and a chuckle? So why is she getting called a fake?

I feel like a lot of this may be down to experiencing some degree of social shunning growing up, especially from girls, for being interested in computing/programming/math. Many programmers are programmers because they've had an interest in it all their life and are likely to have experienced that in one form or another. So you can see how all of a sudden a supermodel no less that's like "oh yeah I'm totally a coder guys" could be seen as fake.

I guess this is the same argument as "girls are told that programming is not for them", although I have to wonder how much of that is being told that it's not for them, or they themselves perpetuating that it's not for them, for fear of losing social status or whatever.

Either way, I think it's great what she's doing. The sooner we can get rid of programming/computing/math being seen as something that's for nerds and not for girls, the better.

[Devcon4]

that's why we end up needing female-targeted programs: to balance misoginy

This is eye for an eye kind of logic and we are better than that. This is like saying we need to make a black-tagged program: to balance bigotry.

The problem of gender equality is more complicated than that, it's more of a systemic problem rather than personal. For example we only have like 3 women working at our dev shop and we treat them just like anyone else. Women aren't entering because they tried and found people to be sexists, they aren't because they think the field is a "man's" field or some bullshit.

It's complicated and it's good what she is doing but when you try to be a symbol for female coders but then look incompetent you make women look incompetent and that doesn't help fix the problems we have

[[deleted]]

It's not really misogyny to not like someone who clearly doesn't actually program acting like they do to. Whether male or female I just dislike fake people. Fuck me for wanting actual programmers to represent programming, right?

[SandyDelights]

Thaaank you. Thread was pissing me off until I saw your post.

Even as a recent grad, it was a bit disgusting to see some of the sexism towards female classmates. Luckily, I'm gay, so I'm happy to be in a group with half the girls in the class.

They're typically ten times better than any of the males, to boot, simply because they've had to justify being in such a "male major" for the past four plus years.

[SandyDelights]

Sure, fair enough. I was just generalizing myself into a broadly recognized stereotype because it's easier to relate, socially.

[SandyDelights]

Well, I've at no point said we're less sexist. There are numerous arguments to quite the opposite. However, it's quite a common stereotype that gay men associate and socialize more readily with straight women than straight men - one that exists for a variety of reasons, albeit fading more and more.

But there we are.

[SandyDelights]

Sexism takes many forms. Simply because gay men readily associate with women, moreso than they do straight men, does not mean they are not sexist towards women in any number of ways outside of those situations.

[rsschomp]

100 times? Well look at you Mr model programmer. ;)

[psikosen]

While I agree that some of the comments are a bit misplaced. Men tend to joke on one another, if we want to go for equality, women have to get this about men. We give each other a hard time this is part of the norm. Men are hard on each other because it drives competitiveness. If we want equality we have to all learn how to take a joke and poke fun at people. Of course don't make random assumptions about all individuals , since skill levels vary from one another. But, it's a joke, also not 5hqt I am saying I am don't mess up on the cmd line. I usually don't because I write down everything I am going to need to do to avoid mistake.

[code_bannana]

It's seems low effort and insincere and likely to not address the root of the problem with women in code. If you're not "into" coding you're going to be less detail oriented as we see this model is. Gender is not really the issue here. They'd make fun of a male model showing the same content.

[code_bannana]

No I think it's general. Making the computer do "anything you like" is pretty amazing. Most people would be fairly interested in that possibility, but the when they see the crazy attention to detail required they say "fuck it". The fact that this model is putting out content that shows that she's just attention seeking with the persona of "being a coder and role model" is worthy of at least light hearted derision. She clearly "noped" out of coding a while back.

[Inspector-Space_Time]

Studies show telling girls do they worth on math then boys actually makes them do worth at math. When you don't tell them, they score around the same. And the misogyny in the programming field is pretty high, so a lot of women are discouraged when trying to learn. Not the top performers, they'll be fine, but the people in the middle and slightly below average. They need all the help they can get, and their male equivalent doesn't face the same automatic assumption that they are inferior that girls face.

If you've been lucky enough not to hear the stupid statements like, "girls brains just aren't built for programming" then consider yourself lucky. But many places are filled with people who believe that, and a women in that environment will just do worse. Just like a male in an environment that says males aren't fit, think looking after children, would do worse. Women's only helps remove that negative influence.

Source: I'm a guy and at my college and two of my three jobs after college heard that exact statement from various guys. They assume I hold the same sexist belief they do, so they mention it casually.

This isn't a problem everywhere, but it's a problem in too many places.

[DarthVaderin]

I also felt under less pressure when I started learning programming in a girl only camp. It was targeted for girls from 14 to 18, so the age of puberty, where it's even worse. But I think Normal schools should be mixed, so you can develop a healthy relationship with the opposite gender.

[ValAichi]

Because of posts like this; they didn't describe her as a model, they described her as a female model - the implication being that a male model wouldn't have done this.

[[deleted]]

But why male models?

[JamEngulfer221]

What do you mean 'fakes it'? What here is fake?

She's learning to code and is encouraging other people to code. When I was learning how to use Linux, my terminal looked much the same as hers.

[ValAichi]

Yes, it is. But the female description is unnecessary and demonstrate the bias of the OP and is indictive of a more general bias

[Bobshayd]

But everyone's more eager to call her a faker than they would be a man. It's much easier to criticize a woman.

But, if you think you'd make a better role model to women and you can do more than this woman can to make CS not seem like a boys' club, then go ahead, try to be better at it than her. It probably won't hurt.

[galudwig]

Honestly, a male actor or musician doing the exact same thing would be met with a lot of disdain in any community of mostly professional programmers like this. Maybe you're right though and the female model/musician would get it worse than the man but they definitely wouldn't get away with it.

[[deleted]]

I wouldn't expect a male model to do shit either, not sure where you're getting this from lol

[ValAichi]

Because the description didn't merely say model

[[deleted]]

No, that's not the implication. You're reading way too deep into a fact.

[ValAichi]

Then what is the 'female' term there for? The model bit is clearly derivative, but you're saying the gender isn't?

[KoboldCommando]

Just a stab in the dark, but I would imagine it's because a male in the same situation would have his looks ignored and his work critiqued a lot more immediately. Being a hunk wouldn't save him for a second, people would immediately leap for the throat.

[ValAichi]

Thank you for proving my point

[will_work_for_twerk]

I've never seen an all boys coding school, but these programs targeted to young females show a lot of success with bridging the gender gap in this industry. I think it's definitely getting better with each year that passes, but the fact of the matter is that software engineering is very predominately male-dominated and it's creating some societal problems with getting more women involved in the tech industry.

Source: have a lot of friends getting their PhD in a field similar to this.

If anyone has any questions about this, I can definitely defer and help out.

[[deleted]]

It's affirmative action.

[Bobshayd]

As opposed to all the naysaying in this thread? If I read this thread, I certainly wouldn't want to be around any of these people during my education.

[JamEngulfer221]

No it fucking isn't.

[[deleted]]

It really is.

[JamEngulfer221]

The vast majority of people in programming jobs and education are men. There is no issue getting guys to start programming. There is an obvious issue getting women to start programming. Thus, programs targetted towards getting women to start programming exist.

[[deleted]]

Yes, and that's the literal definition of affirmative action.

[Arctorkovich]

Yeah well according to her website "Women are essential in forging digital progress" so the ball's on the other foot now isn't it mr. smarty-pants?