[zozbot234]

> The author recounts three or four occasions when they did some programming at school. They're quite right - that isn't being a "hacker".

It's a difficult assessment, because OP seems like they had some spontaneous appreciation for 'hack value', in that they chose to go well beyond the requirements of their LOGO assignment. Ultimately, though, OP was unable to join a supportive community of hackers, and this stunted their intellectual growth and left them with a dislike for the very idea of becoming a hacker. I don't think this has much to do with OP being female; it's quite clear that OP was badly taught, at a time when coding was far less regarded than today.

[bencollier49]

You know, as regards young female hackers - and reflecting on what sustained me as a boy - there is some element of self-reinforcement going on. If we work on the basis that it's more common for boys to show an early interest (for whatever reason), then their overwhelmingly same-sex friends are more likely to be showing an interest, and that's more likely to lead to an obsession of the type which turns one into a "hacker".

But equally, having tutored programming in my late teens, the boys were self-starters whose parents recognised that they had no friends who were interested, so perhaps this argument is not quite right. They seemed like they were on the spectrum a bit.