There's a game called Valhalla, in which there is a fictional version of the internet where everyone online is assumed to be female and where women didn't have to hide their gender in online communities to avoid biases. The game's take on internet culture feels absurdist, but the satire really hits home when you see threads like this that highlights how invisible women are in our IRL internet culture.
In an ideal world, women don't have to call out their gender in comments (as another user suggests). Instead, we shouldn't assume all posters are male by default.
I always find myself assuming the person writing the comment I'm reading to be a middle-aged white male, and I feel dumb and ashamed when I realize that's not it. FWIW I'm a white male living in a western country so I'm deeply privileged/prejudiced. It's good to have my biases put in check, but I wished I didn't have them in the first place.
This! This is why I asked this question. Most of the people have this assumption. It's important to feel the presence of female developers and techies on HN.
Programming and STEM in general are targeted towards men (though this message is getting better with the various diversity initiatives). Boys have male role models and are socialized into engineering career paths. This messaging is missing for girls and women. Since they are not encouraged or do not see themselves as programmers, they inadvertently miss the opportunity to pursue these paths at a young age.
In your case, you overcame the class barriers of learning programming. This doesn't preclude the existence of other social barriers, such as gender, race, etc.
It's very admirable of you to have been programming from such a young age, but is it entirely unimaginable for someone to start coding in university? You're glibly discounting the experience of many many talented people. Tech is becoming a field with many different types of people with diverse backgrounds and it's necessary to recognize and accept that fact.
There's a well documented and researched confidence gap between men and women. While confidence isn't an issue restricted to just women, it is a more prominent issue for them on average. Did a quick search, and here's the first paper I found on the topic. There's a ton more, though I'm not sure which are publicly available.
Also, what you're talking about is also called stereotype threat, which is where "people feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group". First step to combating those feelings is often recognizing them!
And how is this sexism? Or are you suggesting they professors should treat women differently?
I was half way through the article before realizing the author was female. She could have been anyone, and have the same issues. And then we find out the professor encouraged her.
Their tone isn't working for them. Even worse, it looks like their target demographic is only males, which reinforces the stereotype that tech workers are not only all male, but also 'slobs'.
This writer has had negative experiences in the game industry due to her gender and is hoping to change that. She is not placing blame on all males. She is merely relating her personal experience where there happens to be a correlation between the negativity and males. Maybe you're reading the tone incorrectly. Her writing is pretty abrasive.
I don't think you've read any of the previous comments in this thread. If you'll go back up to this[1] comment you'll see that "tone" has as much to do with this argument as the brand of laptop she used to write the article in the first place.
But the target demographic for games doesn't just have to be males. There was a great piece by Tracy Lien detailing the history of video games and how marketing is the direct cause of the stereotype that video games are for males. Video games don't inherently appeal to a specific gender. Indie games, in general, are a great example of how games can have gender inclusive appeal.
Anyways, here is her article. I really enjoyed it and it's a great piece if you want to learn more about video game culture.
Obviously. E.g. The Sims was probably targeted more at girls/women than at boys/men. But that is irrelevant, different games are targeted at different sectors of the market, and some are targeted specifically at men (violent games come to mind).
I would think that the marketing of video games is more connected to the fact that in the beginning, most games were developed by males (simply because most programmers/geeks were men, developing games that they would enjoy themselves).
My point is that games don't have to target a specific gender. Not only does that encourage gender stereotyping, but it limits the games available for either gender. It might be a viable market practice, but it should be criticized for its negative social effect.
Just fyi, but Sims wasn't targeted towards a specific gender. Its marketing was focused on young adults and casual gamers. The Sims is slightly more popular with females, but that doesn't mean it was specifically intended for a certain gender.
In addition, you don't need to speculate on the marketing of video games. The article I linked gives a very thorough walkthrough of its history. The very first games were predominately designed by men, but the content wasn't targeted towards males. For example, Pong, Breakout and Centipede are relatively gender neutral. The extreme marketing bias was introduced after the video game industry crashed in 1983. Companies had to be more careful of the products they created and Nintendo took the lead on the initiative to specifically target males.
In an ideal world, women don't have to call out their gender in comments (as another user suggests). Instead, we shouldn't assume all posters are male by default.