animus9

"The term 'software engineer' conjures images of pasty-faced young men with poor posture and limited social skills."

...

"We have this idea of people in technology being and looking a certain way," she said. "That stereotype is destructive, and I think that's part of the reason why female and minority programmers are so few."

...

Her personal opinions and prejudices aside, the article is a tad hypocritical. It's hard to tell to whom the stereotype is most destructive. The media has created and maintains the "nerd stereotype", which I would argue is more destructive to those who are classified as such: since they have to overcome a far more general prejudice than lack of visibility in a particular field.

CNN has a lot of nerve to use a racial slur such as 'pasty-faced'. I believe the correct term is Caucasian.

I am all for dropping the obviously false stereotype about nerds. But let's not paint this particular oppressed group as villains.

Do you see what I am doing here? Look for the truth my friends, and come to your own conclusions. Do not be complacent with their lies.

That's right you haven't heard any complaining: because they just go to a different field to avoid it. And then all the noise eventually follows along and complains that the field is all male. And the cycle repeats.

Men are interested in doing something and creating something, and we will continue doing this forever. Those who cannot do this will continue to complain and blame someone else for their situation. A lack of personal responsibility (independent of gender) will always result in failure.

This is one sided. No doubt there are those men who are violent and indecent: But nobody ever suggested that we mould man after these barbarians, or generalize masculinity based on such poor examples. The same character flaws exist in the opposite sex but manifest themselves differently (with comparable detriment).

Equality is a one dimensional metric and a kind of tunnel vision that undermines true ethics. Should a small man eat the same quantity of food as a large man? It would be equal. Have you given away most of your wealth to the poor and needy so that everyone has an equal share? Shall we cut the legs off the tall so that they are the same height as the short? Or throw acid on the beautiful so they have no advantage over the ugly?

An all boys class sure would be a breath of fresh air: it might be possible to focus on the actual education for once. Voluntary segregation seems like it would solve a lot of problems and eliminate our favourite scapegoats.

Your label, not mine. I don't believe in the MRA movement or whatever you call it. I am opposed to off-topic gender politics articles (which are becoming more frequent here) as I believe they are divisionist and ruin the spirit of this forum. This is Hacker News NOT Gender Politics News.

I have watched the manipulation of online forums in real time by a specific group with a specific political agenda. Hacker News might very well be the next victim.

It used to be about technology. What place does subversive gender politics and social construct theory have amongst hackers and lovers of technology?

Did you read the truth?

Actually most men who program are just interested in it. Same with the ladies. Discussing gender is irrelevant to this forum. This new age jargon will have a short shelf life once the truth gets out. Those who sow seeds of discord will soon have to reap their crops.

The only thing suspicious is the propaganda machine which is creating this never ending list of gender-tech articles and their associated divisionist jargon.

Social construct theory is dead. Girls who have a genuine interest in technology couldn't care less about the sex of their coworkers (because if they did then they would be sexists).

One might wonder why it is that we have higher standards for our children than for ourselves. Maybe it's because they are born with a kind of innocence that we do not want to see corrupted. Maybe instead of lowering our standards for our kids we should actually set a good example and live up to the same standards we expect of them.

(Imagine if we did this with respect to all things that we try to hide from our children.)

I have heard all the arguments in favour of swearing and I used to believe them: I no longer do. The problem with swearing is that it becomes an unchecked impulse of aggression -- and eventually a habit that is very hard to break. The least that could be said is that it degrades the quality and content of speech to the point where some people become nearly unintelligible. What do we gain by introducing unnecessary chaos into the ordered system of communication?

Let us look above, not below, for our moral standards.

Am I the only one that is getting tired of this never ending sexist drawl of one-sided political articles pretending to be tech articles? This BS is ruining my hacker news experience.

There is very little truth to the vast majority of these "women are the victims of everything and all men are to blame" polemics. Sometimes bad things happen: but it really has nothing to do with gender. Most bad people are bad independent of their gender.

It's always easy to spot the real sexists: because they can't stop generalizing the whole world into this statistically irrelevant dichotomy of gender. Maybe there are SOME people who do actually act based upon this particular metric, but I've never known any one of them (male or female) to do so without having had some prior negative experience with the opposite. It's tit for tat: and as they say "two wrongs don't make a right" [no matter what sex you are].

So please, can we put the brakes on the rest of this low grade moralizing and get back to actual tech news?

I vote for no more political BS on hacker news. If you want to moralize join a religion. This place is supposed to be for hackers and tech (both gender neutral).

Thanks.