[baddox]

> So only feel guilt if you help reinforce the imbalance (like commenting on a girl programming, which carries an implication of noteworthiness (since it was noted) and thus perhaps surprise (which could imply by extension social wrongness)).

Why is it wrong to consider a girl programming to be noteworthy or surprising? If it's true that females are underrepresented in programming or technology careers, which is the whole point of most of this thread, then this reaction seems completely appropriate.

[esperluette]

It's okay to be privately surprised, as long as you think about WHY you're surprised (e.g. "girls don't code" vs. "there aren't as many women coders as you might expect given the # of women in the US"). The dick move is to belabor the point and treat the programming woman as a performing dog instead of a person.

Think of it this way: you meet a woman at a meetup about a technical topic, and you find you have projects/interests in common. If you spend the whole conversation interrogating her about how/why she learned to code, asking her questions about what her boyfriend/significant other/husband does or what he thinks about her coding, or asking for her "feminine opinion" on your consumer startup, you are a dick.

If you treat her as a PERSON, not a novelty, and talk about those interests that are relevant to the meetup, that's decent behavior.

It's about the coding, not the gender (stupid).

[baddox]

> The dick move is to belabor the point and treat the programming woman as a performing dog instead of a person.

Sure, but that's basically saying that "being a dick is being a dick." You could also be a dick by treating a world-class athlete as a performing dog. You can be a dick about anything, regardless of how unoffensive that thing is on its own. But that's not what the original statement was talking about. It explicitly said that considering it noteworthy or surprising is inherently bad.

[HCIdivision17]

Yeah, I was wrong in the severity of the statement. What I can say that it could offend, since it has (at least for me). As always, you may be sufficiently tactful in person to avoid the whole issue.

[aredridel]

Yeah. unfortunately, people are DICKS a lot. That's what we're trying to fix.

[aredridel]

THIS.

[HCIdivision17]

Hey, turns out there's a much better written sub-thread above started by jfarmer (which is a lifesaver, as I'm not socially sophisticated enough to go deeper).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6977836

My example you quoted was an example of how a comment could unintentionally go sour; I think the term is triggering. But you're right - there's nothing wrong with noticing. Making an uncomfortable point of it is wrong-ish; making an encouraging point of it could very well be good.

Many of the suggestions cover helping clandestinely: the article notes providing effort to help move along applications to YC for women. I would assume pains would be taken to not make the women applying feel like they are being given application assistance due to incompetence, but rather simply as a way of accelerating their application out of eagerness and support, merely greasing the bureaucracy's wheels, if you will. (Though I should note that it's likely impolite to even mention misconstruing it that way - but I prefer games of perfect information and I don't think it should be offensive to talk about failure modes of social plans.) Hackers generally don't like creating special cases, so this may seem inelegant, but life's pretty inelegant socially, so such a suggestion is likely a pragmatic concession as a positive means to an end.

Given my lack of many social graces, I err on the side of hastily qualified awkward corrections. YMMV!

[jacalata]

There's nothing wrong with noticing. However, pulling from some personal experiences: you should refrain from highlighting that you noticed by saying "oh, you're not a guy!" or "are you really x?" or "I was expecting a guy!"