The thing is though that she is in a very rare, privileged position. She liked her community, fit in well, felt protected and cared for, wasn't troubled by the gender ratio and all in all was just happy with her situation.
For a very large amount of women that is unfortunately not the case nowadays and unfortunately her situation is not typical in the slightest and I didn't see much actionable advice to improve on that.
It's also important to note that it seems the people she respected are separated from today's youth by almost two generations:
I've never had a problem with old-school hackers. These guys
treat me like one of them, rather than "the woman in the group",
and many are old enough to remember when they worked on teams
that were about one third women, and no one thought that strange.
Of course, the key word here is "old" (sorry guys). Most of the
programmers I like are closer to my father's age than mine.
Ever since that generation the gender gap has been widening and she's now witnessing attempts to correct that and she doesn't like what she sees. She doesn't like the exclusion of her son, the message it sends to him about women in tech (and thus herself) and most of all the fact that gender has now become a 'thing.' And I can totally relate that for her it must be painful indeed and that is her voice and she totally deserves it.
Where we would go wrong is if we took this as the right approach, if we started basing best practices from this or worse: if we would use it to belittle the work of everyone who is trying to improve the situation.
Exactly: it isn't the case now, but it was the case before. Why is that?
if we would use it to belittle the work of everyone who is trying to improve the situation
But the whole point is that "trying to improve the situation" by making a huge fuss about "women in tech" is counterproductive; it makes the situation worse, not better.
To the extent that there is a "right" approach, IMO it is to not fuss about anything except what each individual child is interested in. The moment you start thinking "I want more girls to do X" or "I think more boys should do Y", you've already gone wrong. Thinking of people as members of groups instead of unique individuals is what caused the problem in the first place; that kind of thinking is not going to fix it.
> Exactly: it isn't the case now, but it was the case before. Why is that?
I don't know; but I do know it's been like that way before the recent fuss about women in tech got started.
> To the extent that there is a "right" approach .. what each individual child is interested in.
Practically speaking then, do you think we would improve the situation in tech if we told everyone who's organizing these events which do explicitly mention gender to stop doing so?
From an idealistic perspective I'm also against women-only events and would prefer them to be perfectly inclusive.
In practice that's a very hard thing to achieve though and if supplanting existing classes with predominantly boys with an explicit girls-only class helps to get some of these girls interested in tech then I'm not one to rain on their parade.
>Ever since that generation the gender gap has been widening
Well, it might have something to do with the huge emphasis on judging people based on their gender that the feminists and sjws have been shoving down everyone's throats lately.
Seriously, she doesn't like the increasing number of women only events because they make it harder for women (at all stages of their careers) to be accepted like everyone else. Surprise, emphasizing someone's gender as the most important thing about you makes people more likely to treat you differently because of it.
I'm part of the younger generation, and I feel exactly the same way she does. These sexist policies are making my life WAY more difficult. I'm jealous of people who got to experience tech before it got popular enough to become a target for feminists.
>You do not represent all women in technology. You get to represent yourself.
Any given feminist will happily claim to be the voice of all women everywhere. It's only when a woman disagrees with their dogma that a woman is only allowed to speak for herself.
> These sexist policies are making my life WAY more difficult. I'm jealous of people who got to experience tech before it got popular enough to become a target for feminists
And I feel sorry for you for that. It's always painful when a subculture you feel at home in enters common culture and moves itself out of your comfort zone in the process. I'd feel even more sorry for you though if your sphere of empathy wouldn't ever expand to include the more feminine geeks that currently don't feel welcome in our industry.
The author of the story wrote this from a good heart and a desire to say the right thing and get people to skip all those frustrating awkward stages in between but unfortunately I'd say that is as useful telling someone who's stressed to just relax: it might even work for some people but if you really care about the outcome relying only on this tactic leaves a lot of room for improvement.
That's why I will continue to do what I feel is best to make our industry more inclusive. The simple fact that we're having this discussion here is made possible by people like me who've repeatedly criticized pg for letting gender issue stories be flagged off the front page so easily and I'm grateful for having played a small part in that small change.
As a genderfluid person from the same generation as the author it's truly a breath of fresh air for me to see thoughts and perspectives I've always had discussed out in the open. I for one feel more at home in the industry already through this all.
If it's like that for me, someone who can at least always choose to pass as male, then I'm sure many women feel the same and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing worth fighting for.
And yes, I acknowledge that will make things harder for you, the author and her son. I believe though that an industry where everyone feels welcome regardless of gender, which just isn't the case right now and hasn't been for a long time, will be worth every ounce of sacrifice it takes.
> Any given feminist will happily claim to be the voice of all women everywhere.
That's a rather dubiously broad statement; but if that happens then call them out on it. Improve the discourse. Ask them if they want to feel the pressure of having their every action represent their entire gender. If they say no then remind them they shouldn't be speaking for their entire gender either.
For a very large amount of women that is unfortunately not the case nowadays and unfortunately her situation is not typical in the slightest and I didn't see much actionable advice to improve on that.
It's also important to note that it seems the people she respected are separated from today's youth by almost two generations:
Ever since that generation the gender gap has been widening and she's now witnessing attempts to correct that and she doesn't like what she sees. She doesn't like the exclusion of her son, the message it sends to him about women in tech (and thus herself) and most of all the fact that gender has now become a 'thing.' And I can totally relate that for her it must be painful indeed and that is her voice and she totally deserves it.Where we would go wrong is if we took this as the right approach, if we started basing best practices from this or worse: if we would use it to belittle the work of everyone who is trying to improve the situation.