LWN: Comments on "Outreachy: an intern's perspective"

What's going on

k8to — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 20:55:31 +0000

You can't refer someone with an agenda like that to an article about Affirmative Action and get any positive result. That term is a hot-button trigger word in American politics which will derail any sort of discussion. The "common wisdom" is that it is "reverse racism" and consists of "handouts and quotas" that "destroy the drive to succeed on your own merits". Also "we tried that and it didn't work" in the 1970s.

I'm not even getting into the idea of whether I agree with it as an approach. Those are just all the stock talking points that will come out in a parade while no actual communication occurs.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

NAR — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 09:40:08 +0000

Maybe it has nothing to do with games today. 30 years ago only gamers had computers at home, nowadays they are ubiquitous in the developed world. But I still do think it's the 10 years old girls that should be introduced to programming - it's way too late to address adults.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Garak — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 01:36:15 +0000

Good comments. I would add a couple elements I find fairly substantial. You didn't talk much about why that gender differentiation was there, but of course others have. Traditional patriarchical sexism and subjugation. Perhaps with some kernel of legitimate brain differences that explain perhaps a small fraction of that gender gap in young advanced mathematical study. But of course that has been abused by sexists, and in turn become almost a taboo topic for the timebeing. Which is fine, it'll probably be easier to talk about in 5 years after we've had the first female POTUS for a few years.

But the one glaring angle I feel obliged to speak out for- I recall the days of watching Cindy Crawford stream in line of pixels at a time (over 56k) as I was a young teenager, without access to the modern internet's trove of inexpensive 'pornography'. And witness to the sale of porno mags in every gas station behind little black bars that covered most of the covers. And witness to the mainstream local religion's massive and systematic persecution of personal sexuality and liberty. And witness to the mainstream professional mental health industry's similarly horrific perversion of the word 'deviance'. And witness to the VCR technology allowing masturbators access to more inexpensive home viewing tech- vs the other option of the mainstream movie theatre downtown showing X rated films. I mean wow. I think that all has something to do with it too. Kids these days are probably like I used to be. You hear some horrors of how society was 30 years ago, and it doesn't sink in how far the world has come in the last 30 years. And you are much older before it sinks in how real those horrors were for your parents, and how it helped create and shape the human terrain we currently live in.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

pabs — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 01:15:05 +0000

ISTR the NPR piece mentioned the games angle.

What's going on

pjm — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 19:25:24 +0000

(If I could modify my post, I would change “assumes ... *are*” to “assumes ... might well be”. The additional step of assuming that they are a part of the criteria depends on the guess that anyone who considers the possibility would guess that they are a criterion; whereas on reflection, I'm not so sure that the goals of Outreachy do need intellectual ability to be among the selection criteria[*], so I'll avoid ascribing that assumption to someone else.)

[*:] I know of a selective school where the principle criterion is something like interest or enthusiasm rather than ability. Though it does happen that interest and enthusiasm are positively correlated with ability, as is whether a person applies in the first place, so it happens that the students are on average very capable.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

k8to — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 16:04:50 +0000

Yes, but the two things have basically been trending in opposite directions for 15 years or so.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

raven667 — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 14:54:04 +0000

> I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games

While there was a dry spell in the '90s and '00s where there were very few games that weren't gender-skewed toward a male audience, today there is a vibrant Indie scene with plenty of quality games that are either told from a woman's perspective or are not particularly gender specific. Maybe in 20 years the demographics will be a lot less skewed and follow a more normal distribution based on interest and ability rather than gender.

What's going on

pjm — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 11:53:40 +0000

You read too quickly, perhaps misreading where the word "solely" occurred. The quoted message doesn't say either that they're selected solely because they're female or that intelligence had nothing to do with it, let alone express an assumption that they're not intelligent; it merely repeats what the original article seems fairly clear about, that selection criteria (i.e. causes of selection) include membership of under-represented groups rather than being solely based on intellectual ability. Far from assuming that intelligence had nothing to do with it, the word "solely" where it does occur makes it fairly clear that the commenter assumes that "intellectual valors" *are* one of the causes of selection.

It is good to help someone understand a situation, but this is rarely achieved with an attacking tone. [Which is a lesson I could do well to learn myself, come to think of it.]

Perhaps it suffices to direct people to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action , which might be of interest both to ezqw (for explaining the motivation behind affirmative action and for some reassurement that it does appear to have a positive effect despite some costs such as that he fears), as well as to anyone to anyone interested in minimizing unintended harms of affirmative action.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

NAR — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 08:36:05 +0000

There's a least decade long latency between girls starting to play games and appearing at the job market.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

k8to — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 08:18:30 +0000

The two NPR pieces linked support the idea that women being successful in programming (particularly in their higher education programs) is strongly linked to how computers were socialized as toys to young people in a highly gender-skewed way.

That's not what I'm asking about above. I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games, and the options offered to the player as to what their in-game avatar or character should look like, and women's success in programming. It's not hard to imagine that in the current timeframe, games being male-player-pespective skewed reinforces the perception that computing is for boys, which might be a driver for representation in the field. However, games in the early 1980s were not nearly so codified about player avatars. Women heroes were represented in early videogames, and most early videogames had no gender representation at all, (though they might use themes that are gender-associated such as guns, planes, spaceships, race-cars, etc). Meanwhile, the representation of women among video game players has risen from the 1980s until now, while the representation of women in computer science (according to the NPR data) has fallen.

Therefore it seems overall that the NPR information and what I know about videogames isn't enough to suggest a link, though there may be one anyway.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

pabs — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 04:33:38 +0000

Yes, see the NPR Planet Money episode from up the thread.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

NAR — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 12:40:28 +0000

I know only anecdotal evidence: at the 25 years reunion it turned out all of my classmates (4 out of 20-something) who were more into computer gaming ended up in the IT industry.

What's going on

anselm — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 09:03:44 +0000

I just said that, if I were an Outreachy participant, that fact that I was selected because of my sex, instead solely because of my intellectual valors, would be pretty much insulting for me and my ambitions.

It's safe to say that to get into Outreachy, you still need to be quite smart, capable and motivated – your sex alone probably won't do the trick.

In that case, being able to realise your ambitions with some help from Outreachy sure beats not being able to realise your ambitions at all because there is a widespread prejudice that people like you, on top of not finding “bro” culture entertaining, can't code in the first place and hence your stuff isn't really worth evaluating fairly.

What's going on

corbet — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 07:36:47 +0000

Even if you'd say it to their face, this, too, is a bit of an attack and is what we'd really like not to see here. Please help us to keep the tone reasonable..?

What's going on

k8to — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 06:44:20 +0000

If your "criticism" is a claim that it's "sexist", then yes that is not wanted. It's a claim that's false on its face and clearly motivated from a silly agenda divorced from relevance to the article. That's why it's unwelcome.

Enjoy!

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

k8to — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 06:37:37 +0000

It's interesting to imply a link between the imbalance in mainstream gaming's inclusiveness and the programming field's imbalance. Both areas are statistically skewed in a way that seems undesirable, and there's an appeal to the idea.

Is there more to this than our musings?

What's going on

ovitters — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 21:26:34 +0000

> instead solely because of my intellectual valors

You're saying that they're solely selected because they're female and that intelligence had nothing to do with it. How you don't see that 1) you're pretty stupid for assuming that they're not intelligent and 2) don't understand how this is not attacking the person posting here 3) highly inappropriate.

Would you state this to the person in real life? If you wouldn't then don't go out of your way to do the same online. In case you wonder, I'd say above to your face, no problem!

What's going on

madscientist — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 18:39:06 +0000

I assume that someone who would feel insulted by being chosen to participate in Outreachy, would not apply to participate in Outreachy. Last I heard it wasn't mandatory that everyone MUST apply to Outreachy. Clearly the people who do apply have a more robust sense of their own worth and don't feel insulted if someone helps them achieve their goals. And clearly people who donate to Outreachy want to help those people achieve their goals.

It's not for you, we get it. Thanks for sharing. Luckily for all concerned it seems likely you're not eligible. I fail to see the problem.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

nix — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:34:38 +0000

This was one of the most uplifting things I've ever read on LWN. As soon as I got here I started nodding enthusiastically, yeah, that's just what it's like:

A month into the project, my mentors asked me if the project was too hard. At that point the answer was, "no." Two weeks earlier, I would have had to say, "yes."

By the time I got here I was literally cheering:

I found myself discovering a joy in, and a facility for, software development that I'd forgotten I had.

It's not just the 200+ developers we would not otherwise have had that validates this scheme. It's the return of joy-in-hacking to so many people who'd forgotten it, or never knew it. (Proprietary software development really can suck it out of you, but large-scale cooperation on a pleasant project really does bring it back!)

What's going on

ezqw2 — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:32:21 +0000

I just said that, if I were an Outreachy participant, that fact that I was selected because of my sex, instead solely because of my intellectual valors, would be pretty much insulting for me and my ambitions.

How is that a personal attack toward any particular person?

Yes, it is unfavorable for the Outreachy concept, but it isn't a personal attack on anyone.

If criticism of Outreachy isn't allowed here, please state this clearly in the terms of use, instead of making up such unsubstantiated excuses for comments removal.

I posted this response twice using my original account, but it didn't appeared. Editors apparently redirected all subsequent comments I post to /dev/null. Therefore, I had to create another account to get this visible.

No wonder there is so little criticism of Outreachy and similar sexist/racist initiatives here, if everyone who criticize them becomes banned in a few minutes after posting his/her first unfavorable comment...

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

nix — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:31:43 +0000

Such behaviour is not even limited to software. Indeed, if you want to work in an exciting field with wonderful job prospects like, uh, print journalism in the UK, it is more or less impossible to get a first job doing that without first having a lengthy unpaid internship (which will probably end up with your getting laid off like half the staff). There are even tales of *auctions* of such internships!

What's going on

corbet — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 15:40:27 +0000

What's going on is that we intend to have zero tolerance for personal attacks toward Outreachy participants or anybody else. Please do not attempt to do that again.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

ezqw — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 15:38:50 +0000

I posted here a comment. I disappeared after few minutes. I can't see it in my 'Comments you have posted' page as well. What is going on?

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

giraffedata — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 03:12:16 +0000

with the transition to magnetic media a base of female role models were removed from the system

I don't see what magnetic media has to do with it. What put the data entry operators out of business was the rise of interactive computing.

I worked as a male data entry operator in 1980 (no cards, though - our keystrokes went straight into files on the computer). In an office of 16 operators, I had the men's room all to myself.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

NAR — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 15:28:04 +0000

When I first used computers, it was in an extra-curriculum class at primary school. We were a bunch of 10 years old boys who were happy to put their hands on Commodore-16 computers. I don't remember any girls there even though the math teacher was a woman. We wrote BASIC programs at school and played Treasure Island at home. In high school there were 2 girls in "computer class" out of 20 and (when the teacher didn't see) we played Wolfenstein 3D over a serial cable. So yes, computers definitely become boy's tools in the 80s and early 90s. That's why I think it's way-way too late to try to solve the "gender inbalance" with initiatives aimed at adults. If you want anything near to the proportion in the general public, you have to put computers into the hands of 6-10 years old girls. Maybe even younger. Write a version of Sid Meier's Pirates where the player can control a female character. Create a Last Ninja with a female hero. Stuff like this will lead to substantially more female programmers.

My 2 years old daughter does play games on iPad. Let's see what happens in 20 years time.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

pabs — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 06:07:28 +0000

Episode 576: When Women Stopped Coding

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/ep...

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

mathstuf — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 18:57:38 +0000

There was a hypothesis on an NPR show where a hypothesis was that when computers entered the home, they were seen as "boy's toys" and that in advanced classes, prior experience was expected and since girls "didn't play" with computers, they were at a disadvantage there as well.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

raven667 — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 16:14:41 +0000

I'm just totally guessing but I think there were a lot of women keypunch operators back in the '60s and '70s, as this was gender stereotyped as like a secretarial task, who moved upward into sysadmin and developer roles, but with the transition to magnetic media a base of female role models were removed from the system and their daughters stopped studying comp-sci in the '80s letting the industry become one-sided, which after a while becomes unfriendly to different people.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

ovitters — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:27:55 +0000

> Thus it was a sad postscript to my internship when someone offered to hire me to build on my work. However, since he lacked
> the funds to pay me, he felt I should get my work up to production quality for a proprietary product, for free, as I was "supposed"
> to last summer. Then he "might" hire me for add-on work.

People with such behaviour is not just limited to Free Software :-P try dealing with a good procurement team; they're bastards and totally unreasonable plus you'll wonder how they'd ever come up with their arguments.

> I politely refused,

I hope polite didn't imply not saying what you wanted or should say. Likely the person knew exactly that it is entirely unreasonable. There's enough people who try to take advantage and often get away with it. I prefer the super direct approach with or without burning bridges :-P

If he offered to pay you, then this means you're in a negotiation. He's offer is that he gains everything for your effort (the weird argumentation is just like a procurement team; ignore it). If the offer starts like this, summarize it, send it back, reject the offer IMO.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

epa — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 09:57:46 +0000

I heard the same thing at university - a generation or two ago there were plenty of women in computer science courses, perhaps not fully half of the students, but a great deal more equal than the current male-dominated intake. By contrast fields such as medicine have gone the other way. I don't think there is an easy explanation in either case.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

douglascodes — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 07:33:02 +0000

I also got back into programming after a 15 year hiatus. The joy of rediscovering how much I loved it was very similar to the author's. "Why did I ever stop doing this?" And cheapskates exist in any field, they want twice as much for zero cost. They usually get what they pay for.

Thank you for the excellent insight into this program.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Paf — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 02:38:19 +0000

It's good to hear more about this project. :)

I know where I work - an older tech company, from the mid 70s - there are a number of women in development, but nearly all of them are nearing retirement age. I'd say the 55-65 group in development and support at our company is maybe 20% women? It's sad to see the change from then to now, where in my own cohort - I'm 30 - there are essentially no women at all in development. (In fact, none currently at our company as far as I know. There are a few among the 20-ish intern/fresh out of college group, which seems good.)

It's a loss, and hopefully it can be sorted out over time...