How We Got 50 Women to Our Hackathon (And You Can, Too)(lgilchrist.com)
lgilchrist.com
How We Got 50 Women to Our Hackathon (And You Can, Too)
http://lgilchrist.com/how-we-got-50-women-to-our-hackathon/
19 comments
That's not entirely accurate. We needed to control the number of attendees to accomodate the venue's space constraints. We set aside 100 tickets, 50 male and 50 female. The male tickets sold out first, then the women's. We then opened up the waitlist in batches as people changed their RSVPs.
Eventbrite made this pretty confusing, as you can't waitlist more than 1 type of ticket (e.g. we couldn't waitlist male and female tickets). We'll come up with a better system for the next one.
Eventbrite made this pretty confusing, as you can't waitlist more than 1 type of ticket (e.g. we couldn't waitlist male and female tickets). We'll come up with a better system for the next one.
I wasn't disagreeing with what you said here. What I was suggesting is that you got 50/50 balance by a technique you didn't mention in your blog post: limiting male enrollment as a percentage of the whole. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but it is unlikely that someone doing only the things you mentioned in your post would achieve the same gender balance you got by doing something else all together.
That's a fair point. I left it out of the blog post b/c it's a more complex issue that probably merits its own post.
It seems there's only 2 ways to go when hosting an event -- open the floodgates or actively manage the attendee list. Because of space constraints, we had to go with the latter.
Managing attendees isn't just about restricting male signups, as you say -- it's also about making sure there are enough designers to developers, beginners to experienced coders, and yes, men to women.
It seems there's only 2 ways to go when hosting an event -- open the floodgates or actively manage the attendee list. Because of space constraints, we had to go with the latter.
Managing attendees isn't just about restricting male signups, as you say -- it's also about making sure there are enough designers to developers, beginners to experienced coders, and yes, men to women.
>It seems there's only 2 ways to go when hosting an event -- open the floodgates or actively manage the attendee list. Because of space constraints, we had to go with the latter.
I don't think that roguecoder is saying that this was the issue. This is a perfectly valid decision, considering all the logistical realities and your stated goal. It colors the implied message that there was a 50% split in interest between men and women, which is what I get from the blog post(which I do realize that was not the intent).
Unfortunately, I think that the blog post is misidentifying the real success here. It wasn't that you got 50 women. Your signup strategy pretty much guaranteed this. The hackathon could have been an utter failure, but the original goal would have The real success is that not only did you have an even gender split, you still had a very successful hackathon. That alone takes more work than just throwing up the signup page and limiting the signups to ensure that the proper distribution is reached, and I think should be the takeaway here: That it doesn't matter whether it's a guy or a girl.
I don't think that roguecoder is saying that this was the issue. This is a perfectly valid decision, considering all the logistical realities and your stated goal. It colors the implied message that there was a 50% split in interest between men and women, which is what I get from the blog post(which I do realize that was not the intent).
Unfortunately, I think that the blog post is misidentifying the real success here. It wasn't that you got 50 women. Your signup strategy pretty much guaranteed this. The hackathon could have been an utter failure, but the original goal would have The real success is that not only did you have an even gender split, you still had a very successful hackathon. That alone takes more work than just throwing up the signup page and limiting the signups to ensure that the proper distribution is reached, and I think should be the takeaway here: That it doesn't matter whether it's a guy or a girl.
The limit of 50/50 doesn't guarantee an attendance of 50 women it just limits the attendance to 50 men, although it obviously doesn't guarantee that either. Personally I think it's a pretty useful message to say 'here are a number of ways that you can make your hackathon more appealing to women' but that's a very boring headline and it would never have hit the front page so I can understand why it wasn't used.
The number of frankly misogynist (I don't mean yours or the parent posters) only heightens my belief that articles like this are useful. There are well known ways to entice men who spend time hacking to your hackathon such as beer, pizza etc. but if we want to broaden the appeal of coding/hacking/programming we need to broaden the appeal of the events that nurture such creativity.
Would it be fair to say that this approach for achieving gender balance can thus be summarized as: "quotas"?
Even quotas won't generate participants where there are none. I would presume this success can be attributed to "all of these suggestions, plus quotas."
Except that it's mentioned on the very first line:
> About a month ago, Hack’n Jill organized a hackathon with a simple goal: get 50 men and 50 women in a room to build something to improve their summers.
> About a month ago, Hack’n Jill organized a hackathon with a simple goal: get 50 men and 50 women in a room to build something to improve their summers.
This is also Top Gear's method of audience gender balance.
Top Gear's gender balance is specific to the studio audience. If you check you might notice that neither the contributors (presenters, production staff) nor the audience are anyway near as balanced so I don't really see your point.
The fact that you gave preference to women makes your whole blog post utter bullshit. You could have written a very good blog post about "our hackathon was better because we ensured it wasn't dominated by men" and it could have been true. But instead you wrote a blog post about these little tricks that might help a little bit, but are likely completely dominated by turning away men.
> But instead you wrote a blog post about these little tricks that might help a little bit, but are likely completely dominated by turning away men.
I don't see the problem with this. If you wish, you can hold your own hackathon without 50/50 male:female enrollment.
I don't see the problem with this. If you wish, you can hold your own hackathon without 50/50 male:female enrollment.
> If you wish, you can hold your own hackathon without 50/50 male:female enrollment.
When did I ever say anything critical of their limiting attendees? If they want to do that, that's their business.
If they want to write a blog post about a bunch of tricks that might help your event be more inviting to women, that's great too.
The problem is with representing the results as due to those tricks while ignoring the other hugely significant factor (limiting attendees).
Consider this: how about I write a blog post about how I changed my headline color from red to green and got a 300% increase in sign ups. Oh, by the way, I also added a free usage tier at the same time, but that's more complex and I didn't want to include it in the same blog post. You should definitely use green for headlines, though.
When did I ever say anything critical of their limiting attendees? If they want to do that, that's their business.
If they want to write a blog post about a bunch of tricks that might help your event be more inviting to women, that's great too.
The problem is with representing the results as due to those tricks while ignoring the other hugely significant factor (limiting attendees).
Consider this: how about I write a blog post about how I changed my headline color from red to green and got a 300% increase in sign ups. Oh, by the way, I also added a free usage tier at the same time, but that's more complex and I didn't want to include it in the same blog post. You should definitely use green for headlines, though.
If I write a blog a post about how I got 50 billionaires to attend my hackathon then the techniques for attracting those billionaires might be considered useful, the fact I was restricting my hackathon to mainly billionaires doesn't negate the benefit of those techniques.
So I can have two titles 'How I got 50 billionaires to attend my hackathon' or 'It's easy to get 50 billionaires to attend a hackathon just refuse anyone who isn't a billionaire'.
The trick here isn't to limit attendees, that's easy, the trick is to encourage the attendees you would like to attend. If it's billionaires then you should definitely check out my upcoming series of blog posts on how I got 50 billionaires to attend my hackathon (possibly fictional), if it's women (who are massively underrepresented at hackathons, much like billionaires) then perhaps the linked article would be valuable.
So what youre saying is that its entirely accurate?
What I'm saying is that it wasn't ideal and we'll try to do it better next time around.
Isn't that sexist?
I'm curious, how do you believe that is sexist?
In my profession it is becoming predominantly female. If I was to advertise an all male study group, or limit an event to 50 percent fem
ale, I would be called exclusionary or sexist I feel.
I just googled male vs. female percentages of UK doctors. Looks like the ratio is roughly 40% female to 60% male. In what alternate reality is that "predominantly female"? This whole save-the-men hysteria is getting out of hand.
In my cohort of 12 individuals, 4 are male. This is not unusual unless you do surgery.
"Looking at the figures shows that the picture is unambiguous. Not only are women doctors to outnumber their male counterparts in the UK by 2017, in general practice this will happen in the next four years. Entry data from medical schools show that over the past four decades the number of men entering medicine has doubled whereas the number of women has increased 10-fold."
http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=2...
"Looking at the figures shows that the picture is unambiguous. Not only are women doctors to outnumber their male counterparts in the UK by 2017, in general practice this will happen in the next four years. Entry data from medical schools show that over the past four decades the number of men entering medicine has doubled whereas the number of women has increased 10-fold."
http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=2...
In my cohort of 12 individuals, 4 are male.
And in my chair, 100% of mobile engineers are female. Woo hoo.
Now let's move on to your article. So much material there, where to begin!
We are feminising medicine. It has been a profession dominated by white males. What are we going to have to do to ensure it retains its influence?
Oh no, what are we going to do to ensure that medicine remains dominated by white males?!
There is a tsunami of women coming through.
Aaaaahhh... TSUNAMI! SOMEONE GET THE LIFEBOATS! Nope, doesn't sound hysterical at all.
And in my chair, 100% of mobile engineers are female. Woo hoo.
Now let's move on to your article. So much material there, where to begin!
We are feminising medicine. It has been a profession dominated by white males. What are we going to have to do to ensure it retains its influence?
Oh no, what are we going to do to ensure that medicine remains dominated by white males?!
There is a tsunami of women coming through.
Aaaaahhh... TSUNAMI! SOMEONE GET THE LIFEBOATS! Nope, doesn't sound hysterical at all.
I am not saying that we should ensure that white males dominate anything.
I just believe that there should be NO discrimination whether positive or negative.
People should get a position based on their merit. If it ends up that a profession is all male or all female, so be it.
I would never spout a ridiculous angle such as 'child minders are predominantly female so lets make it easier for a male to get the job'.
I just believe that there should be NO discrimination whether positive or negative.
People should get a position based on their merit. If it ends up that a profession is all male or all female, so be it.
I would never spout a ridiculous angle such as 'child minders are predominantly female so lets make it easier for a male to get the job'.
Merit has little to do with social choices, though. Just look at how often "cultural fit" comes up in discussions of hiring.
You are imagining an idealized utopia. The problem is, we don't live there. Unless hiring is done purely through objective tests that have been tested for bias and normalized there will be social-status factors involved. Coping with those lets us get much closer to a merit-based world than pretending they don't exist.
Imagine you had some code but a system-level round function was broken: it rounded up on 4-9 and down on 0-3. You can't change the function without changing the entire operating system. Would the best approach be to say, "I don't think we should discriminate! Round functions should behave correctly!"? Or would it be to compensate for the known flaws while working to change the system-level issues?
You are imagining an idealized utopia. The problem is, we don't live there. Unless hiring is done purely through objective tests that have been tested for bias and normalized there will be social-status factors involved. Coping with those lets us get much closer to a merit-based world than pretending they don't exist.
Imagine you had some code but a system-level round function was broken: it rounded up on 4-9 and down on 0-3. You can't change the function without changing the entire operating system. Would the best approach be to say, "I don't think we should discriminate! Round functions should behave correctly!"? Or would it be to compensate for the known flaws while working to change the system-level issues?
I understand some people having trouble with reading comprehension, but.... that's the very first line of the post.
I'm not sure what the problem is with that, but getting 50 women to a hackathon, much less any event, is quite an achievement. Perhaps you should focus on that, rather than immediately poking holes?
I'm not sure what the problem is with that, but getting 50 women to a hackathon, much less any event, is quite an achievement. Perhaps you should focus on that, rather than immediately poking holes?
Lots of events work this way...take the Boston Marathon, for example, which has more forgiving qualifying times for women to ensure that it's not overly-male dominated.
I was at this hackathon. Sure, if you micromanage every single aspect of the event, you're going to achieve what you set out, but getting people to hack together over a weekend does not create a culture in which men and women can collaborate and work together after the event is over.
Specifically, as a guy, I found some of the marketing material distributed at the event pretty offputting. Most of the stuff was color-coded, either pink or blue, and that was the first weird thing. Why would you reinforce the traditional gender roles like this if you are truly trying to change them?
Second, I didn't keep the materials, but as I recall there was one that was making the suggestion that "every fairy tale starts this way." Well, maybe, but that suggestion is not really welcome in a professional setting. I wonder if that's the right approach to encourage guys to start taking women seriously in the work setting.
Bottomline, the motivation of the event is commendable, and I am all for adding more women to the technology sector, but adding sex into the promotion of a hackathon, and so badly, will not get us there.
Specifically, as a guy, I found some of the marketing material distributed at the event pretty offputting. Most of the stuff was color-coded, either pink or blue, and that was the first weird thing. Why would you reinforce the traditional gender roles like this if you are truly trying to change them?
Second, I didn't keep the materials, but as I recall there was one that was making the suggestion that "every fairy tale starts this way." Well, maybe, but that suggestion is not really welcome in a professional setting. I wonder if that's the right approach to encourage guys to start taking women seriously in the work setting.
Bottomline, the motivation of the event is commendable, and I am all for adding more women to the technology sector, but adding sex into the promotion of a hackathon, and so badly, will not get us there.
I was there, too, and I came away with different impressions. A big part of hackathons is meeting other devs and sharing product/project ideas. Then if you find you like working with someone over the weekend, you're more likely to do so in the future. So it seems like having a hackathon where they reach out specifically to women would be very conducive to helping women feel more a part of the scene.
Their swag certainly had a blue and pink/red palette (see also their website: http://www.hacknjill.com/), but it wasn't color coded. They just handed out bags of stuff, and you got whatever happened to be in them. Similarly, the t-shirts had the logo and whatnot on them, but they were all the same design IIRC. The color palette reminds me of an instagram photo, which fit with their hackyoursummer motif.
I don't remember that marketing line anywhere, and upon a cursory glance, I don't see it on their site, but even if it was, so what? Whimsy is commonplaces in marketing materials these days, and is definitely something you see in a light-hearted professional setting. This isn't a corporate-lawyer lawyer-a-thon where one would expect things to be staid, it's a casual hackathon.
Their swag certainly had a blue and pink/red palette (see also their website: http://www.hacknjill.com/), but it wasn't color coded. They just handed out bags of stuff, and you got whatever happened to be in them. Similarly, the t-shirts had the logo and whatnot on them, but they were all the same design IIRC. The color palette reminds me of an instagram photo, which fit with their hackyoursummer motif.
I don't remember that marketing line anywhere, and upon a cursory glance, I don't see it on their site, but even if it was, so what? Whimsy is commonplaces in marketing materials these days, and is definitely something you see in a light-hearted professional setting. This isn't a corporate-lawyer lawyer-a-thon where one would expect things to be staid, it's a casual hackathon.
Make the Attendee List Public
Interesting, I have been told that (many) women prefer not to have their real names published online especially not in connection with a particular real-life event they are attending. It multiplies that amount of harassment they are open to.
Interesting, I have been told that (many) women prefer not to have their real names published online especially not in connection with a particular real-life event they are attending. It multiplies that amount of harassment they are open to.
That's an interesting point, and one I hadn't thought of. I'd argue that it probably depends on the nature of the event and what you're looking to get out of it. (e.g. if you're coming to a hackathon without a team, it's probably in your best interest to make your name public).
We'll definitely consider an opt-in box for the next go-around.
We'll definitely consider an opt-in box for the next go-around.
In running similar events in the past, I have found adding a single checkbox to the sign up form labeled 'Please include my name and contact information in the official attendee list' is both simple and effective.
My gut reaction tells me that women are less likely to check that box than men are -- is that your experience?
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It's great to see that the list of changes to make does not include anything enormous, ground-breaking or incredibly difficult. The author is basically proposing a few subtle changes to the tone of the hackathon -- I'm glad to see it had such a huge impact.
There is no evidence that the huge impact was caused by these subtle changes. It is far more likely that the even gender split was obtained by the ticket quotas omitted in the original post. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4282226
Is it just me or does all this talk about women in tech and efforts to balance things out (artificially) just devalue what good work women engineers are doing?
It's the classic affirmative action problem: if you lower the bar for one group in the eyes of everyone else members of that group are viewed as having less merit regardless of whether or not its true.
I'm all for having more good female engineers because I'm all for having more good engineers (male or female). The counterargument seems to be that women find the male dominance of tech intimidating or engineering careers aren't presented to women as possibilities. If there is gender bias is science/engineering/maths classes or with career guidance and so forth then I'm all for eliminating that.
But as far as the first goes, I have two words for you: Grace Hopper.
It's the classic affirmative action problem: if you lower the bar for one group in the eyes of everyone else members of that group are viewed as having less merit regardless of whether or not its true.
I'm all for having more good female engineers because I'm all for having more good engineers (male or female). The counterargument seems to be that women find the male dominance of tech intimidating or engineering careers aren't presented to women as possibilities. If there is gender bias is science/engineering/maths classes or with career guidance and so forth then I'm all for eliminating that.
But as far as the first goes, I have two words for you: Grace Hopper.
It is just you: empirical evidence finds that balancing things out artificially increases participation without affecting performance. See, for example, http://www.tirol.gv.at/fileadmin/www.tirol.gv.at/themen/gese...
This isn't a quality problem: it is a cultural problem. There are enough high-quality women programmers out there to have 50/50 gender balance (obviously). It does not usually happen because of self-perpetuating social dynamics.
I notice you are only in favor of interventions that don't require you to do anything. What if overcoming bias required you, and everyone like you, to take a step back and create space where women can participate? Would you be willing to forgo participation in a hackathon to an equally-qualified women so that the other women would find it a more welcoming space?
I would, because the comfort of more-than-one woman is more important to me than my own participation. If I don't have a hackathon to participate in I can always start one of my own; I don't need to see participation as a zero-sum competition with the women and men around me.
This isn't a quality problem: it is a cultural problem. There are enough high-quality women programmers out there to have 50/50 gender balance (obviously). It does not usually happen because of self-perpetuating social dynamics.
I notice you are only in favor of interventions that don't require you to do anything. What if overcoming bias required you, and everyone like you, to take a step back and create space where women can participate? Would you be willing to forgo participation in a hackathon to an equally-qualified women so that the other women would find it a more welcoming space?
I would, because the comfort of more-than-one woman is more important to me than my own participation. If I don't have a hackathon to participate in I can always start one of my own; I don't need to see participation as a zero-sum competition with the women and men around me.
> There are enough high-quality women programmers out there to have 50/50 gender balance (obviously)
Do you have a source for that?
Do you have a source for that?
I was referring to this specific hackathon, which obviously succeeded.
More generally, Computer Programmers as a whole are 22% women. Many hackathons where I am are wildly oversubscribed; any hackathon that is at least 127% oversubscribed should, if they have average gender representation for the profession, be able to have a 50/50 split. Since I've seen 2x or 3x oversubscription rates, that is not unreasonable.
If you include designers and business people, it takes even less oversubscription to get there. 29% of technical managers are women, along with 54.3% of designers.
More generally, Computer Programmers as a whole are 22% women. Many hackathons where I am are wildly oversubscribed; any hackathon that is at least 127% oversubscribed should, if they have average gender representation for the profession, be able to have a 50/50 split. Since I've seen 2x or 3x oversubscription rates, that is not unreasonable.
If you include designers and business people, it takes even less oversubscription to get there. 29% of technical managers are women, along with 54.3% of designers.
So, it's not at all clear that there are, in fact, enough high-quality female programmers to have a 50/50 split in the field at large, which is clearly the important point.
But I really started this comment to pick a few minor nits. So feel free to ignore the entire comment.
1) They didn't achieve 50%, actually, even with all that work.
2) 127 * 0.22 = 28% . Assuming your industry estimates are correct, you're going to need better than 100% oversubscription to get 50% women, actually.
3) And even that only assumes random sampling. Which is actually clearly a crazy assumption. And I would take this hackathon as proof of that, actually.
4) I'm now on a team that's roughly 13% female. That's a new maximum for my career. So with that in mind, I'm curious where you got that 22% figure.
But I really started this comment to pick a few minor nits. So feel free to ignore the entire comment.
1) They didn't achieve 50%, actually, even with all that work.
2) 127 * 0.22 = 28% . Assuming your industry estimates are correct, you're going to need better than 100% oversubscription to get 50% women, actually.
3) And even that only assumes random sampling. Which is actually clearly a crazy assumption. And I would take this hackathon as proof of that, actually.
4) I'm now on a team that's roughly 13% female. That's a new maximum for my career. So with that in mind, I'm curious where you got that 22% figure.
2) It's 227*0.22; you still get the original 100% too. If it were 27% oversubscribed you'd get 28%.
3) It is an assumption, though one that fits with my experience of hackathons (they tend to be 15-20% women.) I wasn't saying it's guaranteed that women will want to attend, just that there are qualified women who could.
4) Department of Labor, 2009 numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2009.pdf Page 29.
3) It is an assumption, though one that fits with my experience of hackathons (they tend to be 15-20% women.) I wasn't saying it's guaranteed that women will want to attend, just that there are qualified women who could.
4) Department of Labor, 2009 numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2009.pdf Page 29.
All this paper shows is that men compete just as hard even if you give preferences to women.
It does not address the question of whether lowering the bar for some people will lower the overall average or the average for that subgroup (hint: it will - this is almost a mathematical identity).
It does not address the question of whether lowering the bar for some people will lower the overall average or the average for that subgroup (hint: it will - this is almost a mathematical identity).
Who said anything about lowering the bar for anyone? There is no bar to attend most hackathons, no qualifying heats or even resume screening.
You also assume that lowering the bar inherently attracts less-qualified people than the marginal alternative participant. That is not true unless the outcome you care about is whatever bar you are using to measure and people accurately self-assess (or universally apply). For example, there is a 1992 study that found that SAT scores were equally good at predicting success of women and men, but only within those groups. Women performed as well during college courses as men with SAT scores 50 points higher (http://her.hepg.org/content/1p1555011301r133/). In such a case in order to maximize total academic performance, you would need to compensate for that systematic discrepancy and lower the SAT bar for women: what you are actually doing is normalizing the predicted-college-performance bar. That would not maximize total admitted SAT scores, but might maximize the outcome the college actually cares about.
You also assume that lowering the bar inherently attracts less-qualified people than the marginal alternative participant. That is not true unless the outcome you care about is whatever bar you are using to measure and people accurately self-assess (or universally apply). For example, there is a 1992 study that found that SAT scores were equally good at predicting success of women and men, but only within those groups. Women performed as well during college courses as men with SAT scores 50 points higher (http://her.hepg.org/content/1p1555011301r133/). In such a case in order to maximize total academic performance, you would need to compensate for that systematic discrepancy and lower the SAT bar for women: what you are actually doing is normalizing the predicted-college-performance bar. That would not maximize total admitted SAT scores, but might maximize the outcome the college actually cares about.
Who said anything about lowering the bar for anyone?
Cletus, in the post you replied to.
As for using gender as a predictor in admissions, you'd also need to penalize high scoring women (and reward the low scoring ones). I have no particular objection to any of this.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/variance-induce.html
Cletus, in the post you replied to.
As for using gender as a predictor in admissions, you'd also need to penalize high scoring women (and reward the low scoring ones). I have no particular objection to any of this.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/variance-induce.html
Mean SATs, not their variance. I don't think that overcomingbias link is really adding anything to the discussion.
The paper that roguecoder referenced is just pointing out that SAT scores are not a perfect predictor, and adjusting the intake based on gender is probably a good idea if you want to maximise the real effect (academic performance), rather than the predictor (SAT scores).
The paper that roguecoder referenced is just pointing out that SAT scores are not a perfect predictor, and adjusting the intake based on gender is probably a good idea if you want to maximise the real effect (academic performance), rather than the predictor (SAT scores).
The Robin Hanson blog post points out the exact same thing. Why is a positive correction for women useful, but a negative one "not adding anything to the discussion"?
If you want to use gender as a predictor, it could be positive or negative.
If you want to use gender as a predictor, it could be positive or negative.
Counter hint: It doesn't. Look at figure 4 in the paper.
I suspect that the reason for this is that when you exclude women in general, you're also excluding women who are just as good as men are.
Which is the unspoken assumption in your post and Cletus' original post: if you include more women, those women are going to be dolts who couldn't make it in on their own steam. I don't see that that's the case (eg. what if they just don't want to participate in crap hackathons where they're going to be harassed?). Neither you or Cletus are providing anything other than the usual hearsay.
I suspect that the reason for this is that when you exclude women in general, you're also excluding women who are just as good as men are.
Which is the unspoken assumption in your post and Cletus' original post: if you include more women, those women are going to be dolts who couldn't make it in on their own steam. I don't see that that's the case (eg. what if they just don't want to participate in crap hackathons where they're going to be harassed?). Neither you or Cletus are providing anything other than the usual hearsay.
The paper did not lower the bar for entry, it lowered the bar for women winning. The correct test would be to compare the winners of the competition with the lower bar to the winners of the competition without the lower bar.
Which is the unspoken assumption in your post and Cletus' original post: if you include more women, those women are going to be dolts who couldn't make it in on their own steam.
The unspoken assumption is that lowering the bar has any effect at all. If the bar is normally at 10, but you lower it to 7 for women, then any extra women this policy lets in must be in the range [7,10). Since all numbers in the interval [7,10) are below the previous minimum, they therefore lower the average.
Which is the unspoken assumption in your post and Cletus' original post: if you include more women, those women are going to be dolts who couldn't make it in on their own steam.
The unspoken assumption is that lowering the bar has any effect at all. If the bar is normally at 10, but you lower it to 7 for women, then any extra women this policy lets in must be in the range [7,10). Since all numbers in the interval [7,10) are below the previous minimum, they therefore lower the average.
I think cletus was trying to raise a feminist point. I certainly took it that way, anyway.
Beside that, I can agree that the issue is cultural, but I also feel it's ingrained at such a level that it may be difficult to overcome any time soon, and it's entirely to do with our perception of girls and boys as children.
The whole idea of girly girls and boys being boys needs to change before parents will stop being worried about their kids wanting to do something that doesn't conform with the appropriate gender stereotype.
I don't personally see what a collection of Barbie dolls, doll houses with fake appliances, and pink furniture, for example, does to even remotely empower a little girl. Maybe little boys might find it useful to understand the concept of housework and responsibility at a young age, too?
It would then stand to reason that there would be more women in tech because more children would have the appropriate parental support to learn about that sort of thing sooner.
Beside that, I can agree that the issue is cultural, but I also feel it's ingrained at such a level that it may be difficult to overcome any time soon, and it's entirely to do with our perception of girls and boys as children.
The whole idea of girly girls and boys being boys needs to change before parents will stop being worried about their kids wanting to do something that doesn't conform with the appropriate gender stereotype.
I don't personally see what a collection of Barbie dolls, doll houses with fake appliances, and pink furniture, for example, does to even remotely empower a little girl. Maybe little boys might find it useful to understand the concept of housework and responsibility at a young age, too?
It would then stand to reason that there would be more women in tech because more children would have the appropriate parental support to learn about that sort of thing sooner.
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>There are enough high-quality women programmers out there to have 50/50 gender balance (obviously)
That hasn't been true since the 60s.
That hasn't been true since the 60s.
It was meant in the specific context of holding hackathons.
> Is it just me or does all this talk about women in tech and efforts to balance things out (artificially) just devalue what good work women engineers are doing?
It's just you. No one is asking to accept sub-par work.
It's just you. No one is asking to accept sub-par work.
This isn't as much about "lowering the bar" affirmative-action-style as much as removing the "no girlz allowed!" sign from the clubhouse.
The problem with the Grace Hooper example is that she is from back when programming was still considered a "secretarial" and "womanly" profession. Software Engineering has become a more male-dominated since then and the percentage of women has gone down.
I'm female and I believe this is true to some extent, but that the good work done by women engineers and women in tech groups outweighs it.
It is hard going to an event and wondering if people think I was invited for free because I'm a woman. Going to a hackathon and having people believe I'm a designer on sight. Having people nod their heads understandingly when I mention I'm a PM, not a full time engineer (any more).
It's rare, but once you get a touch of the impostor syndrome it's very hard to shake. I'd believe rationally that 90% of the people at one of these events would be ready to embrace me for my abilities and not care about my gender. The people I work with certainly do an outstanding job of that. I've just had enough odd comments and sceptical looks that I believe there's a grain of truth to the paranoia.
On the flipside, the last Startup Weekend I went to was SWEDU, where I worked with two other female iOS engineers, a female marketer and a male teacher to pull out an awesome iOS learning game in less than 54 hours. So.. good things do happen. :)
It is hard going to an event and wondering if people think I was invited for free because I'm a woman. Going to a hackathon and having people believe I'm a designer on sight. Having people nod their heads understandingly when I mention I'm a PM, not a full time engineer (any more).
It's rare, but once you get a touch of the impostor syndrome it's very hard to shake. I'd believe rationally that 90% of the people at one of these events would be ready to embrace me for my abilities and not care about my gender. The people I work with certainly do an outstanding job of that. I've just had enough odd comments and sceptical looks that I believe there's a grain of truth to the paranoia.
On the flipside, the last Startup Weekend I went to was SWEDU, where I worked with two other female iOS engineers, a female marketer and a male teacher to pull out an awesome iOS learning game in less than 54 hours. So.. good things do happen. :)
> if you lower the bar for one group in the eyes of everyone else members of that group are viewed as having less merit regardless of whether or not its true.
Meanwhile, the group of people who got in thanks to affirmative action keep proving the nay-sayers wrong, and setting examples for people like them to follow them into the field.
You can't eliminate gender bias simply by removing barriers to entry. You have to actively encourage people to enter, otherwise they will never even consider it. The term of art here is “substantive equality” and I'd encourage you to Google it to read more arguments in favor and opposed to it.
Meanwhile, the group of people who got in thanks to affirmative action keep proving the nay-sayers wrong, and setting examples for people like them to follow them into the field.
You can't eliminate gender bias simply by removing barriers to entry. You have to actively encourage people to enter, otherwise they will never even consider it. The term of art here is “substantive equality” and I'd encourage you to Google it to read more arguments in favor and opposed to it.
So for me, to be honest, I would be excited to go to this type of event because I hardly ever interact with women. Which is just because my life is sad. LOL.
But anyway, I think that to sell it to men would be pretty easy: tell them "There will actually be lots of women at this hackathon!".
To sell it to the women, you would probably tell them the same thing: "There will actually be lots of women at this hackathon!" The motivation for the women would be to finally get do work in an environment that wasn't completely saturated with men.
Then of course you have to limit the number of men you allow in. The real trick I think is just finding enough women who are in tech, can commit to going to the event, and convincing them that there really will be lots of women there. I think the secret to that is to access to and pull in existing networks of women in technology.
But anyway, I think that to sell it to men would be pretty easy: tell them "There will actually be lots of women at this hackathon!".
To sell it to the women, you would probably tell them the same thing: "There will actually be lots of women at this hackathon!" The motivation for the women would be to finally get do work in an environment that wasn't completely saturated with men.
Then of course you have to limit the number of men you allow in. The real trick I think is just finding enough women who are in tech, can commit to going to the event, and convincing them that there really will be lots of women there. I think the secret to that is to access to and pull in existing networks of women in technology.
Hey ilaksh, some of what you have said is actually a big part of the problem. At professional events, you should refrain from seeing women there as holding the potential for interaction outside of a professional setting. Sexualizing women you meet in such contexts is NOT okay.
Excuse me, "sexualizing"??
Just to clarify, what I meant was I would be happy to just literally be having any type of extended interaction with women while I was there. Not flirting with them, or hitting on them, or asking them out, or "sexualizing" them. Just working with them.
First of all, I generally refrain from seeing women as holding the potential for interaction of any sort in any sort of setting. Mostly because I generally don't interact with them, but also because I am bad at socializing in general and also because I have personal priorities to take care of before I am willing to attempt dating again. I'm short, not particularly attractive, I have a health issue that causes me to feel and look fatigued a lot of the time, and I'm not particularly well-off financially.
So I get that. No female in a working context ever wants to date _me_ or have any interaction with me outside of a professional one. I got that many years ago. Thanks for re-iterating that.
Anyway, I can understand that women are tired of being hit on at work. They are just really really sick of it. So I get the motivation for your comment. But to suggest that, based on my comment, I was "sexualizing" women was not fair or accurate, and the reality is that some of the women who attend a hackathon would not mind one single bit if a man who was there who they felt was attractive flirted with them a small amount.
So I think that the truth is that not every woman in every circumstance in regards to every man at every event like that would agree that there is no potential for interaction outside of a professional setting whatsover with every man there. Its worth emphasizing to keep things professional, but you definitely overstated things the way you worded your comment.
But anyway, don't worry. If I ever attend such a hacker event with women (which I probably never will, realistically, I hardly leave my home, and I am really bad at making friends, even among hackers), I will never consider having any kind of friendly or otherwise social engagement or interaction with any of the women there aside from one that is 100% professional. Thank you for setting me straight.
My mistake for being honest.
Just to clarify, what I meant was I would be happy to just literally be having any type of extended interaction with women while I was there. Not flirting with them, or hitting on them, or asking them out, or "sexualizing" them. Just working with them.
First of all, I generally refrain from seeing women as holding the potential for interaction of any sort in any sort of setting. Mostly because I generally don't interact with them, but also because I am bad at socializing in general and also because I have personal priorities to take care of before I am willing to attempt dating again. I'm short, not particularly attractive, I have a health issue that causes me to feel and look fatigued a lot of the time, and I'm not particularly well-off financially.
So I get that. No female in a working context ever wants to date _me_ or have any interaction with me outside of a professional one. I got that many years ago. Thanks for re-iterating that.
Anyway, I can understand that women are tired of being hit on at work. They are just really really sick of it. So I get the motivation for your comment. But to suggest that, based on my comment, I was "sexualizing" women was not fair or accurate, and the reality is that some of the women who attend a hackathon would not mind one single bit if a man who was there who they felt was attractive flirted with them a small amount.
So I think that the truth is that not every woman in every circumstance in regards to every man at every event like that would agree that there is no potential for interaction outside of a professional setting whatsover with every man there. Its worth emphasizing to keep things professional, but you definitely overstated things the way you worded your comment.
But anyway, don't worry. If I ever attend such a hacker event with women (which I probably never will, realistically, I hardly leave my home, and I am really bad at making friends, even among hackers), I will never consider having any kind of friendly or otherwise social engagement or interaction with any of the women there aside from one that is 100% professional. Thank you for setting me straight.
My mistake for being honest.
Oh! I'm sorry if I came off as insensitive. I didn't mean to criticize you as a person or anything. I was trying to convey that your post held undertones which weren't really compatible with the goals of events promoting women in tech.
Sexualizing doesn't have as extreme connotations as you seem to think; like a lot of sexism these days, its manifestations are much more subtle.
Anywho, I hope you go to one of these hackathons! It's easy to make friends when you just respect and treat everyone equally, man or woman (or extra-binary adjective).
Sexualizing doesn't have as extreme connotations as you seem to think; like a lot of sexism these days, its manifestations are much more subtle.
Anywho, I hope you go to one of these hackathons! It's easy to make friends when you just respect and treat everyone equally, man or woman (or extra-binary adjective).
Check out all the awesome stuff that got built here: https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/hackn-jill/hacks
The icebreaker is genius. It's awkward enough for normal people, much less some of us who are less socially adept.
Change the genders and you see how fucking ridiculous it is. 'How we got 50 men to go to our [stereotypically female activity].
Have fun with stereotyping yourselves... "Feed People Well: Offer vegetarian-friendly options, salad, fruit, and wine in addition to the usual beer/pizza/redbull. We got at least a dozen thank-you’s specifically for having fruit with breakfast. Everyone likes healthy food – so why not go the extra mile?"
Have fun with stereotyping yourselves... "Feed People Well: Offer vegetarian-friendly options, salad, fruit, and wine in addition to the usual beer/pizza/redbull. We got at least a dozen thank-you’s specifically for having fruit with breakfast. Everyone likes healthy food – so why not go the extra mile?"
There are so many other demographics in tech that are also under-represented. African American men. Latinos. Heck, even though Asians are highly represented in engineering/comp-sci at top tech schools in the U.S. very few are in leadership positions in major North American tech companies.
Every week on Twitter or HN I see great stories about people trying to advance women's presence in tech. I don't disagree with that movement at all. But I hear very few talking about the other subgroups in the male gender that may have obstacles from going into tech.
Every week on Twitter or HN I see great stories about people trying to advance women's presence in tech. I don't disagree with that movement at all. But I hear very few talking about the other subgroups in the male gender that may have obstacles from going into tech.
I have seen a few on Hacker's News but, like gender posts, they get flagged off the front page uber-quick.
The problem, and why I ignored your comment here to start with, is that you phrase is as "yes, but..." "Yes, that's bad, but why aren't you focusing on this totally different thing!?!" That's a form of derailing, especially when you suggest that those things are important because of how they affect men, rather than that both African-American men and women may face additional challenges entering our industry.
A positive way to engage in this specific effort, and thus not derail, might be to ask the organizer, "was there any difference in the demographics of this relative to other hackathons in terms of race? I am curious if the inclusiveness had any spillover effect."
That way, instead of changing the subject you are deepening your engagement with the topic at hand. If you would like people to instead stop talking about this post and talk about something different, you will probably have much better luck posting a different article where such conversations wouldn't be off-topic and derailing.
The problem, and why I ignored your comment here to start with, is that you phrase is as "yes, but..." "Yes, that's bad, but why aren't you focusing on this totally different thing!?!" That's a form of derailing, especially when you suggest that those things are important because of how they affect men, rather than that both African-American men and women may face additional challenges entering our industry.
A positive way to engage in this specific effort, and thus not derail, might be to ask the organizer, "was there any difference in the demographics of this relative to other hackathons in terms of race? I am curious if the inclusiveness had any spillover effect."
That way, instead of changing the subject you are deepening your engagement with the topic at hand. If you would like people to instead stop talking about this post and talk about something different, you will probably have much better luck posting a different article where such conversations wouldn't be off-topic and derailing.
> African American men. Latinos. Heck, even though Asians are highly represented in engineering/comp-sci at top tech schools in the U.S. very few are in leadership positions in major North American tech companies.
There is something subtle going on here. Most likely multiple subtle things going on. Unfortunately, they are subtle enough that I have a hard time thinking of ways to gather empirical data concerning these things without breaking the law. For example, I have noticed that Asian men seem to be interrupted more often than white men in restaurants.
There is something subtle going on here. Most likely multiple subtle things going on. Unfortunately, they are subtle enough that I have a hard time thinking of ways to gather empirical data concerning these things without breaking the law. For example, I have noticed that Asian men seem to be interrupted more often than white men in restaurants.
Indeed. I've brought up this point numerous times yet no one (besides you) responds. It just seems easy to swath all men as having advantages over women when in fact, divided into subcultures one could argue certain demographics of men do suffer from numerous disadvantages over certain demographics of men and women.
By whom are they interrupted?
The wait staff and by others at the table. I think there's a subconscious perceived status thing that just makes interruption less likely for "white" men. Granted, this is just my perception. Data would be good. I should probably search the social psychology literature.
Interruption might be partly due to mismatch in visual cues. People look for non-verbal signs that a person stopped talking. Maybe those misfire because of cultural differences? If true, this should be especially pronounced in group conversations.
That's not all of it. There are clear interruptions of the person talking by the wait staff.
well, these guys seem to be casting a pretty wide net for disenfranchised subgroups. Probably not a perfect solution, but...
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/23/156555402/silicon-valley-boot-...
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/23/156555402/silicon-valley-boot-...
Thanks for the piece. Reading the comments made me cringe.
I don't see anything ridiculous to a post titled "How we got 50 men to go to our craft fair" or "How we got 50 men to our nursing career fair" or even "How we got 50 men to stop being sexist assholes".
Me neither. My high school offered college scholarships for men going into nursing, and I've seen posts in women-oriented boards about how to attract more men to events. It doesn't seem crazy at all...
Ah yes, the ol' gender swap trick. Because our culture exists in a vacuum, right?
Awesome a hackathon that is run by a product person(blog owner), marketing/pr woman, banking analyst and one front end dev. Where do I sign up?
It seems like you're being sarcastic, since the hackathon took place in the past and, therefore, signing up is no longer a possibility. Despite the exhaustive observations you surely made while not attending the event, I find your insinuation that only teams of back end developers have the qualifications required to organize hackathons to be facile and, frankly, untenable.
I think that the founders came from heterogenous backgrounds is, in fact, a positive thing. Part of the point of the hackathon was to create an environment that values different perspectives. The fact that the organizers have experienced the tech scene from avenues other than coding gives them different perspectives, which, all other things being equal, is probably a good thing.
Perhaps all else is not equal, but I'm not convinced. I volunteered at the hackathon. The hacks were quite good and--possibly more importantly--the atmosphere was phenomenal. People worked and played well together, and a number of individuals made comments to me along the lines of the following: - I feel really comfortable working at this hackathon. - This hackathon is really well-organized. - I appreciate that this hackathon doesn't require me to do unreasonable things like sleep in this office, or not sleep at all, or expect me to do tequila shots like other hackathons.
I'm sure a team of 4 back-end devs or 4 startup CEOs could have put together a similarly great hackathon. But is that sort of team composition a necessary condition for the event to have been a success? No.
Reladtedly, how funny/sad/appropriate is it that in a discussion involving the exclusion of females from the tech community, someone would protest that teams composed of non-developers should be excluded from organizing hackathons?
I think that the founders came from heterogenous backgrounds is, in fact, a positive thing. Part of the point of the hackathon was to create an environment that values different perspectives. The fact that the organizers have experienced the tech scene from avenues other than coding gives them different perspectives, which, all other things being equal, is probably a good thing.
Perhaps all else is not equal, but I'm not convinced. I volunteered at the hackathon. The hacks were quite good and--possibly more importantly--the atmosphere was phenomenal. People worked and played well together, and a number of individuals made comments to me along the lines of the following: - I feel really comfortable working at this hackathon. - This hackathon is really well-organized. - I appreciate that this hackathon doesn't require me to do unreasonable things like sleep in this office, or not sleep at all, or expect me to do tequila shots like other hackathons.
I'm sure a team of 4 back-end devs or 4 startup CEOs could have put together a similarly great hackathon. But is that sort of team composition a necessary condition for the event to have been a success? No.
Reladtedly, how funny/sad/appropriate is it that in a discussion involving the exclusion of females from the tech community, someone would protest that teams composed of non-developers should be excluded from organizing hackathons?
Hackathon is about technology not about building products. The cancer that has infected the tech industry has bastardized the word. Prototyping something with bootstrap, rails and sqllite is now a hackathon and focus is more on design than technology. I bet there were more designers,marketers, product people than devs at this hackathon. Afterward the demos are built, the cancer(marketing/pr/sales/product people) will ask the developers to build the real product and offer such awesome terms like working for free for two months and getting 5% in RSUs.
Developers need to learn, they don't need these leaches. If you're the original developer and not getting over 30% of the equity, you're getting fucked.
Developers need to learn, they don't need these leaches. If you're the original developer and not getting over 30% of the equity, you're getting fucked.
sure, having four devs organize this event would have been nice for credibility, but they wouldn't have necessarily throw a better hackathon just by being devs.
there's a learning curve to throwing good hackathons, just like with anything else. we talked to a ton of people before this event, including devs and other hackathon organizers, read every best practice we could find, and solicited a lot feedback from our attendees. sure, we made some mistakes (demos need to be queued up a la TC, peoples choice award needs to be fail-safe), but we'll fix them moving forward.
what would you have done differently?
there's a learning curve to throwing good hackathons, just like with anything else. we talked to a ton of people before this event, including devs and other hackathon organizers, read every best practice we could find, and solicited a lot feedback from our attendees. sure, we made some mistakes (demos need to be queued up a la TC, peoples choice award needs to be fail-safe), but we'll fix them moving forward.
what would you have done differently?
I'm sure they'll update http://hacknjill.com/ for the next one in January. I had an amazing time there building Flare!
Limiting tickets alone doesn't ensure that equal number of men/women show up.
If they hadn't done all of the other stuff it may have been the case they sold 50 male tickets and zero female tickets.
People seem to assume that if tickets are there then women show up. It takes a lot of encouragement to get that to happen.
Also I'd like to add I'd be more encouraged to join a 50/50 style hackathon than a female only one. I think they did a great job.
If they hadn't done all of the other stuff it may have been the case they sold 50 male tickets and zero female tickets.
People seem to assume that if tickets are there then women show up. It takes a lot of encouragement to get that to happen.
Also I'd like to add I'd be more encouraged to join a 50/50 style hackathon than a female only one. I think they did a great job.
Oddly, they didn't include a line in their posters describing their perks:
Men: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (male) even staff get that for you.
Which would surely work right? --particularly if you add a giggle about "staff" as a metaphor....
Men: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (male) even staff get that for you.
Which would surely work right? --particularly if you add a giggle about "staff" as a metaphor....
It is pretty amazing to see how much the term "hackathon" has been diluted in such a short time. How did we go from a very literal "a hacking marathon" where the developers of project X get together to hack non-stop for a week on their project to "non-programmers scraping together some off the shelf javascript/css frameworks into a trivial web app for a couple of hours, and then having some marketing person call it an awesome hack"?
"Non-programmers?" Where are you getting that from?
From the fact that programmers don't go to "hackathons" that are 8 hours long, have no set purpose, and are run by marketing weasels who say things like "build awesome hacks".
"have no set purpose" - you can't code without somebody else handfeeding you a purpose? God forbid we hold an open-ended event and let the programmers decide what to build!
And I'm sorry I didn't realize there was a minimum time limit for writing code to be considered "programming". Next time I only code for 8 hours, I'll be sure to remind everybody that it didn't really count.
sigh Why do I poke at the trolls?
And I'm sorry I didn't realize there was a minimum time limit for writing code to be considered "programming". Next time I only code for 8 hours, I'll be sure to remind everybody that it didn't really count.
sigh Why do I poke at the trolls?
I didn't say there was a minimum time to be considered programming. I said "spend 8 hours doing something random" isn't a hackathon. "OpenBSD developers spending a week hacking on OpenBSD" is a hackathon.
I wish I were surprised that this sort of hostility is only shown when attracting women is one of the main goals of an event.
But I'm not. I'm not.
But I'm not. I'm not.
Granted, the OP is showing an inappropriate level of hostility; but you bring up an interesting point:
Why should having women show up at a hackathon be a goal in its own right? It seems contrived, and doesn't do much to address the disparity of women in technology (in fact it seems to further enforce the notion that such contrived measures are the only way to effectively get women to participate in such an event.)
Why should having women show up at a hackathon be a goal in its own right? It seems contrived, and doesn't do much to address the disparity of women in technology (in fact it seems to further enforce the notion that such contrived measures are the only way to effectively get women to participate in such an event.)
It has nothing to do with attracting women, unless you are suggesting that women can't program, and so the only way to attract them is to have fake hackathons like this? Don't project your sexism on me, I simply commented on the dilution of hacker terminology by marketing weasels.
I was at this hackathon. I am sad to find out that I am not a programmer :(. My teammates will also be sad to find this news :( :(. I will inform my employer tomorrow and instruct them to do the same. It will be hard to make a living anymore since this has been my only profession, but I guess I will have to make do.
Thank you for sharing your insight and correcting my worldview!
Thank you for sharing your insight and correcting my worldview!
That's great. I wonder what will become of all these things these people spent their time building.
that's not the whole story of a hackathon - tremendous value gets added from the experience/learning/relationships built as well
+1. Where did this idea that weekend hacks should become startups come from? Hackathons are about building communities and making awesome stuff for the sake of making awesome stuff, not making money.
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This seems great, but this is my concern: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lh5fR4DMA.
Fundamentally a psychological problem. Whether the attendee can keep it professional or not would make or break this hackathon
Fundamentally a psychological problem. Whether the attendee can keep it professional or not would make or break this hackathon
From an evolutionary psychological standpoint I find this ridiculous:
Traditional standpoint is that men go to places where women are (e.g. bars) and hit on them. This requires a combination of various skills on the part of men, including resource acquisition (to be able to buy drinks for women), social skills, and the ability to be aggressive in a non-threatening way (e.g. to approach an attractive woman and chat her up).
There are of course many variations on this, but the skills that men ostensibly need to succeed in them are, generally speaking, some rough combination of the above -- which, perhaps unsurprisingly -- are some combination of the same skills that many women would want for a male partner (i.e. assertive, successful, socially capable, attractive).
The presence of these so-called "feminist" threads on HN often take the form of hackers, who presumably do not have all of the aforementioned skills, attempting to get women to come to them. I think it is reasonably obvious that the motivations include the fact that people who do not have all of the aforementioned capabilities and who are limited to incredible hacking skills, want to be able to succeed with women (e.g. obtain sex and/or relationship) on their own terms.
Personally, I believe this is both selfish and a violation of evolutionary norms. Certainly, there is a place for certain types of affirmative action, but in this case (and many like it) it is pretty clear that the action is not made so that the end product is better (i.e. better computer programs built in less time), but that nerds get babes.
While there may be some success with respect to the unstated motivation, I think the fundamental dishonesty with respect to the approach vector means that you will never attract the type of woman that you would ideally want to couple with (yes, I'm speaking primarily to a male audience here).
There may be "good enough" couplings insofar as there clearly is some appeal here from the standpoint of women, given the relatively high salary of nerds (I saw some unusual couplings in silicon valley along these lines, particularly in the South Bay), but I don't think this is a very good strategy long term.
At the very least, I think the motivations need to be clear. Why do dudes in industries that are dominated by dudes want to have women around them in the work place so bad? Yes, we know why, and so do most women. There are other reasons of course, but we have to be honest about all of them when we are coming up with a supposed "solution."
Traditional standpoint is that men go to places where women are (e.g. bars) and hit on them. This requires a combination of various skills on the part of men, including resource acquisition (to be able to buy drinks for women), social skills, and the ability to be aggressive in a non-threatening way (e.g. to approach an attractive woman and chat her up).
There are of course many variations on this, but the skills that men ostensibly need to succeed in them are, generally speaking, some rough combination of the above -- which, perhaps unsurprisingly -- are some combination of the same skills that many women would want for a male partner (i.e. assertive, successful, socially capable, attractive).
The presence of these so-called "feminist" threads on HN often take the form of hackers, who presumably do not have all of the aforementioned skills, attempting to get women to come to them. I think it is reasonably obvious that the motivations include the fact that people who do not have all of the aforementioned capabilities and who are limited to incredible hacking skills, want to be able to succeed with women (e.g. obtain sex and/or relationship) on their own terms.
Personally, I believe this is both selfish and a violation of evolutionary norms. Certainly, there is a place for certain types of affirmative action, but in this case (and many like it) it is pretty clear that the action is not made so that the end product is better (i.e. better computer programs built in less time), but that nerds get babes.
While there may be some success with respect to the unstated motivation, I think the fundamental dishonesty with respect to the approach vector means that you will never attract the type of woman that you would ideally want to couple with (yes, I'm speaking primarily to a male audience here).
There may be "good enough" couplings insofar as there clearly is some appeal here from the standpoint of women, given the relatively high salary of nerds (I saw some unusual couplings in silicon valley along these lines, particularly in the South Bay), but I don't think this is a very good strategy long term.
At the very least, I think the motivations need to be clear. Why do dudes in industries that are dominated by dudes want to have women around them in the work place so bad? Yes, we know why, and so do most women. There are other reasons of course, but we have to be honest about all of them when we are coming up with a supposed "solution."
Wow, I have to say this was a pretty disgusting comment. Didn't expect to see this on HN.
If you start your post off with any variant of "from an evolutionary psychological standpoint" in a thread about sexism/feminist issues you need to seriously consider not clicking the "add comment" button. Also, look up "projection". I can honestly tell you that no, the reason I support women in tech is absolutely not so I can "get babes."
Really, your post was unbelievable.
If you start your post off with any variant of "from an evolutionary psychological standpoint" in a thread about sexism/feminist issues you need to seriously consider not clicking the "add comment" button. Also, look up "projection". I can honestly tell you that no, the reason I support women in tech is absolutely not so I can "get babes."
Really, your post was unbelievable.
Thanks for pointing this out, because between the multitude of posts in this forum and the posts which I responded to on the blog, I feel like I am taking crazy pills. What is the big deal here? Seems like so many of my peers have deep seated psychological problems (not like I don't, but damn).
It was organized by women. I presume that if she wanted babies she would have them. Sperm is not that expensive.
Programmers who happen to be women are coworkers, not baby-making machines. Your attitude is so wrong I don't even know where to start, except to suggest that you clearly don't understand emergence, evolution or humanity.
Programmers who happen to be women are coworkers, not baby-making machines. Your attitude is so wrong I don't even know where to start, except to suggest that you clearly don't understand emergence, evolution or humanity.
I'd note that this theory applies rather poorly to gay feminist developers, but you probably have an even more repugnant hypothesis for that.
evolutionary psychology is known trash and isn't really evolution or psychology, please stop basing your worldview off of it
There are a lot of assumptions made in your posting, and I think you should subject every one of them to honest skepticism.
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You live in a strange world Sir!
So they did find 50 women that wanted to attend a hackathon, but they did it by leaving the door open for women to attend when otherwise the entire hackathon would have filled up with men. Not mentioning that approach in their blog post seems ... disingenuous.