[rorymarinich]

Ah! But did the girls overlook them because they naturally preferred jocks? Or did they overlook them because even when they were younger they lacked a certain social ability that other kids had?

My youthful experience was that nerds tended to be just as sexually active as jocks. They just tended to be active in different ways.

[gaius]

A little of both I guess. Note that I am not saying girls "deserve" it at college for what they did (or rather didn't) do at school. But y'know, as frustrated as she is, that kid had probably explained the ls command a hundred times to people. Both blaming the other for their inexperience.

[rorymarinich]

Hmm. I see where you're coming from, but I don't think that the kid's impatience and intolerance necessarily came from the fact that she was a she. I'm a guy who's seen plenty of exasperation and arrogance from other guys.

(And on the flip side, I know a few programmers who are incredibly nice and patient people but still have problems talking to girls. So I'm not denying that some guys find girls intimidating. But I think that inexperience isn't necessarily what leads to poor social skills in other areas.)

[gaius]

Yep true - but if she'd had any experience of geeks she'd just have shrugged it off as nothing personal.

[rorymarinich]

Only if she had a certain intolerance for that kind of behavior. I don't think it should be expected that she has to conform to their behavior. That's not the polite expectation, anyway.

I don't associate with many geekier types of people, despite a lot of overlapping interests, for precisely this reason. I'm very sensitive and easily hurt/annoyed by that kind of behavior. So I avoid a lot of things that I'm actively interested in because the crowd is so abominable. The gaming world in particular; I don't even look at games which draw is online play, because I've never found an online gaming community that I've felt comfortable being a part of.

[gaius]

True, but equally true if he'd had experience of girls/non-geeks/whoever he'd be more likely to adjust his delivery accordingly.

Basically I don't hold with the notion that there is a gang of males deliberately driving women away from tech.

[rorymarinich]

Oh, definitely not deliberately! But inaction can be just as harmful sometimes, if our natural actions are serving to drive others away.

The argument isn't whether or not some people, including many women, are turned off by the current culture of programming. They absolutely are. The argument is whether it's the responsibility of the current culture to try and adjust its ways to let more people in, or if it's okay to let it stay the way it is. People in this thread are making arguments for each side.