[Jun8]

Here's more coverage: http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-even...

The organizers' apology is:

"While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it."

Which completely misses the fact that the other items on the announcement seem to be written by a 11 year old or someone after downing quite a few beers.

Here's the point though: Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech.

[theorique]

This kind of crap is at least part of the reason why there are relatively few women in tech. Yeah, some of them are natural pitbulls who will power through every obstacle. They aren't fazed by this kind of stuff.

But then there's the quiet majority who could go either way - this kind of thing says "Working in technology isn't for you. You're not welcome here".

Not really the message we want to send to people we'd like to attract into coding as a profession / hobby.

[prodigal_erik]

Writing correct code is so close to impossible that only the obsessed will be even slightly competent. I want us to eject the army of male dilettantes from our industry, not go out of our way to attract female ones who will merely double the volume of broken crap we have to deal with.

Which is not to say that "BEER WENCHES HURR" isn't better avoided. Have some class, people.

[MartinCron]

Who better to replace the ejected army of male dilettantes? Right now, we're effectively excluding half of the talent pool. That can't possibly be a good thing.

[prodigal_erik]

The talent pool consists of the people who are already being irresistibly drawn to the work. No matter how severe the shortage, nobody who needs to be lured into the industry (by pay or a more polite environment or whatever) can adequately substitute for obsession. When we try, we get the kind of embarrassing trainwrecks software is infamous for.

[MartinCron]

I understand exactly what you're saying, you and I have had this exact argument before.

The notion of being "irresistibly drawn to the work" seems very shallow and amorphous. Would you (or I, for that matter) still be irresistibly drawn to it if the pay were dramatically worse? If the status were worse? If the working conditions were worse? If people systematically objectified you and your gender?

Following through with that example, do you think we should make day-to-day life worse for software developers to drive the-less-than-committed out? Maybe have hazing rituals or public shaming? Force interview candidates to walk through hot coals? Endure a persistently hostile and alienating workplace? It's all the same bullshit.

Regardless of the whole "learned skill vs. natural talent" question, the ability to make software well is an aptitude, it's not a calling. It's not (and shouldn't be) the priesthood.

[prodigal_erik]

Sorry for repeating myself, this is I think a perspective that tends to be overlooked in recruiting discussions.

People like teachers and writers and musicians and i-bank analysts are treated like dirt because there's a surplus of them, and the work is being rationed to the ones with the greatest need to participate in their industries. I suppose there's some level of hellishness (say, minimum wage, a continually-ringing phone, and no testing) that would so overwhelm the privilege of writing code that I would eventually only do it on the side, wasting most of my life in a day job doing something mediocre. And there's a lesser level that would shake out only the duds and frauds, like turning the squelch dial on a radio. But it isn't going to happen anytime soon. In the current shortage of developers, even though the industry as a whole would be better off ramping down the astonishing pay and perks which have started attracting people we can't use, each employer defects and tries to outbid the others.

Which is why I get concerned at proposals to bring in a lot more disinterested people. Harassment is not an ethical tactic to keep them out, though; I think I draw the line at outreach.

[fruchtose]

Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text.

Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech.

I would argue that pointing out the sexism of the ad doesn't trivialize the problem of women in software. It's a multi-part problem. Society primes girls not to go into technology as it is ("Math class is tough!" says Barbie). When college-admitted students begin the process of choosing a career and choosing a major, society will weigh heavily on their choice.

Some women remain interested in technology despite this. And when they make this choice, the industry has to be ready with open arms to embrace women. If society does not make female programmers feel welcome, and neither do their peers and mentors, we see low numbers of women in our field. We have to do our part to eliminate the feeling of otherness in what is currently a male-dominated field, or female participation will continue to remain low. Sexist ads set back the entire industry by saying to talented potential engineers that they are not taken seriously.

[Jun8]

You're right, it's a multi-part problem. I don't quite agree with "society primes girls not to go into technology" part; although it does have some truth to it, I don't think all the gender gap in the filed can be attributed to societal factors. I can give two arguments:

(i) Not all technical fields have the gender gap, e.g. in biological and agricultural studies 51% of PhDs were awarded to women in 2009, whereas it was 22% in engineering and 27% in math and computer science (so engineering is worse but people usually don't tackle, say, the gender gap in civil or electrical engineering) (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/14/doctorates);

(ii) It's a widely popularized finding that, when adjusted for gender equality in the country, the gender gap in sciences, e.g. math, disappears (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32949/title/Math_...). This fits in with your society influence theory. Yet, AFAIK (the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo aside) the hacker cultures for those top (generally Scandinavian) countries are still dominated by males (can't point to a study, anecdotal evidence, will be happy to retract if given convincing evidence to teh contrary).

[briancurtin]

> Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text.

Agreed. To me, the apology boils down to "We thought this was funny and harmless, but not everyone agreed. In order to keep people interested in our event, we changed the text."

[fruchtose]

You hit the nail on the head. It's placing the blame on the people who were offended, rather than taking responsibility. And not only that, there's no mention of them actually changing the event. Presumably, the hired event staff will still be female. Everything just points to Sqoot being clueless about how to handle themselves in the public sphere.

[einhverfr]

I think we have to be careful about defining "in tech." If it means founding employees of technology startups, that's very different from working in technical fields. The latter is approaching gender parity albeit slowly.

[fruchtose]

In many cases, this distinction is unnecessary. Even big companies like Microsoft have a long ways to go; their workforce is 76% male.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx

[einhverfr]

So you are talking about "in tech" as "working for tech companies" rather than doing "technology-related work" right?

According to the Department of Labor, Microsoft is doing worse than the field as a whole.....

Source: http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/hitech02.htm

[fruchtose]

Yes, I'm talking about companies "in tech." You defined "in tech" as employees of technical startups, and I'm saying that even larger technical companies have these same issues, so restraining "in tech" to mean startups is not a necessary distinction. Sorry I was not clear on that.

[einhverfr]

So to be clear, your concern is not that women aren't writing software but that they aren't working for software houses, correct?

[RegEx]

> Here's the point though: Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech.

Interesting perspective. Could you please elaborate?

[Jun8]

Sure: Let's focus on the women in tech problem, leaving aside minorities, which has also been previously discussed on HN (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3169475). This was discussed many times on HN in the context of sexist language, booth babes in conferences, etc.

My thoughts on the subject are:

1) There is a gender imbalance in the tech community, regardless of how you slice it (e.g. founders, developers, etc.).

2) Many people when faced with what they perceive to be sexist language, take it to be a political statement rather than the idiotic flyer (as in this case) or the casual blog comment(e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3602762, which caused a firestorm on HN) that it is.

3) Don't get me wrong: I'm against crude use of sexisms such as this one, GoDaddy commercials, photos of women in bikinis on Rails conference slides, booth babes. The point is that these offend not only my anti-sexist sensibilities but also my intelligence, so even if I were sexist I would still be offended by these and ask for their removal, on the grounds that they show that the mental model of me that the people responsible have is a brainless, easy to manipulate moron.

4) However, thinking that eradicating the above will lead to considerably more women in tech, I think, is mistaken. I believe addressing the issues that are less obvious but more influential in consciously or subconsciously turning off women is more important, e.g. rather than getting worked up when somebody uses the word girl in a post, thinking about the "cool" but male-oriented terms like code ninja that are prevalent in job postings (e.g. all of the 10 types of programmers mentioned here are all male oriented: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-types-of-progra...).

[zevyoura]

The worst part of that last article you linked is that the only time they acknowledge a possible female role is in the "Mediocre Man" stereotype: "Don’t let the name fool you; there are female varieties of Mediocre Man too. And he or she always takes longer to produce worse code than anyone else on the team."

[icebraining]

Well, there were female ninjas too. And I frankly don't see how Martyr or Evangelist are male oriented.

[Jun8]

Your comment led to a TIL: women ninjas exist and were called kunoichi. Thanks.