I'll add a second observation Dinah. Toxic personalities like the sort you run into on message boards are great at chasing women out of tech. The sort of person who will attack you with nothing but anecdotes to claim there is no gender imbalance in a field like tech or teaching, despite clear evidence of the opposite. These people demand the last word, so the only option women have is to sit down, shut up, and be put in their place... or leave. My experience is that most girls choose to leave.
I'd say Blake Burns is wrong. There is systematic bias.
"Hi, I'm a middle aged man. I would love to hang around with school aged girls in my spare time. Where do I sign up?"
You see the problem. The majority of people who could teach young girls to code are men. To fix the girls in tech problem, one must first fix the lack of male teachers.
All the coding teachers I know are men. All of them work at bootcamps or non-profits that accept school-aged girls. This taboo that you're implying exists may exist in some places (like playgrounds), but it doesn't keep men out of teaching jobs.
Also, I've been writing software for 20 years, and I can easily say that anyone who can teach science or math can also teach coding. It's not rocket science. The basics are pretty basic. If a 12-week bootcamp grad can get a job, a high-school teacher can learn enough programming to teach the basics to kids.
>All the coding teachers I know are men. All of them work at bootcamps or non-profits that accept school-aged girls.
And yet, some parents are reluctant to bring their girls. Hmmm.
>it doesn't keep men out of teaching jobs.
It doesn't keep ALL men out of teaching. FTFY.
I know what you want to say. I'm concern trolling and exaggerating. Let's agree to disagree. I'm sure Dinah didn't post this rebuttal with hopes of reading a flame war. I replied with my perspective. I'm sure she'd love to hear yours instead of hearing you try to tear mine down to fit your world view. Looking forward to your top level post direct to her.
I wish you would save that for Reddit (or anywhere else). I like HN because trolls are downvoted and exaggeration isn't tolerated much -- even to the point that harmless jokes are downvoted into oblivion. It's not that those things are unacceptable, but rather that a lot of us come to HN for the serious, genuine discussion that is hard to find elsewhere.
Also don't troll and exaggerate if you don't want anyone to respond with a counterpoint. Isn't trolling about getting a response?
> I replied with my perspective. I'm sure she'd love to hear yours instead of hearing you try to tear mine down to fit your world view.
If you don't want anyone to respond to your comments, don't post them somewhere that discussion is encouraged.
> Looking forward to your top level post direct to her.
I agree with her and don't have anything to add to her article. If that weren't the case, I would have posted a top-level comment. Don't tell me where my opinions do/don't belong on an open forum.
I'm not. You're passive aggressively implying that I'm doing that instead of saying it directly. It's not appreciated, but I tried to bury the hatchet and let you have your say. You'd rather tear down others than share your own experience. You have admitted that you have nothing to contribute other than argue with me. Thanks. I hope it made you feel like a bigger man.