[kenjackson]

There's a simple test I use for these cases... it's called the "Least Restrictive Subset Test", or LRST for short. You apply it to see if targeting a specific group is worthwhile.

It works by asking two simple questions:

1) If I marketed to a less restrictive subset, would I capture a smaller percentage of my target audience (in proportion to the population)? For example, if I said, "GirlsCode" -- would I still get ~10% black females attending? I suspect you'd get the expected percentage of white females attending, so if white girls were my target audience, I needn't restrict the audience any further. But for black females I would.

2) If I market to this restricted subset will I likely increase the total number of my target audience in attendance. For example, if I said, "WhiteMenCode" do I expect more white men to attend than if I said "MenCode"? I suspect probably not (at least not people serious about coding, versus just trying to prove a point about race). But BlackGirlsCode probably will increase the total number of black females who are serious about learning to code.

I think BlackGirlsCode passes the LRST.

[accountswu]

I can see your point but I think it is pretty clear that most of the minority groups are at a disadvantage to start with (Asian and Jewish minority in US are exceptions, their income is higher than average, the proportion of Jewish representation in law schools, for example, is disproportionately higher, perhaps 35% at Harvard, but that's an exceptionally well-accomplished group).

If the parents don't have enough money to feed the kids, the first thing on the mind would not be the next programming language to learn, it would be about the meal for the next afternoon. Compare that kid to someone whose parents are able to afford the education of kids at the top, most expensive business school or law school of the country. They are not competing at an equal level. Unfortunately the average black happens to be much poorer than the average white (although there are more poor whites than the total number of poor blacks but that's because the blacks are about 13% of total, whites are about 72% of the total). [edited]

I don't think anyone in Brazil would have an event "Latina hackathon" but a "Latina hackathon" in US would be understandable.

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-medi...

Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5

Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.