Whhhhhoooooah, boy. We are dangerously close to diving head-first into some serious discussions. Do we? Do we dare go down that dark, curvy, treacherous road?
There is a show in the UK which is broadcast around lunchtime called āLoose Womenā. It is basically a live panel of 4 women who discuss news, current affairs, celebrity gossip in front of quite a noisy studio audience. Whilst doing this they are constantly saying how rubbish men are and objectifying them.
If you tried to do the same thing with a panel of 4 men, the show would have to be around midnight and still likely to be taken off-air at the first episode.
While I agree with you, the comparison only works if men and women are treated equal in all scenarios, which isnāt really the case.
Satire and poking fun at a majority is normal, satire and poking fun at a minority is considered much more sensitive in general.
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Actually, for me, the issue is quite simple. But, not one I probably would discuss here.
[quote=ājonobacon, post:24, topic:5533ā]
Satire and poking fun at a majority is normal, satire and poking fun at a minority is considered much more sensitive in general.[/quote]
Actually arenāt men in the minority? Slightly more births are male than female but women tend to live longer.
Note: Iām not suggesting we should encourage or even allow sexist talk here.
Thatās actually a rather interesting topic. In the USA, for example, there are significantly more women than men. But, in recent years, that has swung the other direction when looking at the birth rate. And, as the years go by, it is likely that the overall ratio will shift towards being a male dominated society.
But, at least by numbers, at present the USA (as well as Europe and Russia) is a female dominated society.
Agreed. Making fun of gingers, however, will still be allowed.
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You mean there is made than one?
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I was going to chime in about if the show can mention @sil in the shower, it can handle talking about boobs. However hearing about @bryanlunduke 's man boobs and the ginger shot threw me offā¦
So Iāll shut up and wander offā¦ 
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I wasnāt trying to start a discussion, but the oddness that I find in us all, including me, can be illustrated by some commercials I remember in the past. In one, there, in an office, was several attractive women all hurrying past one another saying āItās break timeā and they would all go to a window. There they would watch an attractive man (I guess all in the USA must be attractive) who was a construction worker, taking a break, with his shirt off and the women ogling. In another commercial, there was two (you guessed it) attractive women standing by a street curb, watching all these very expensive sport cars pull up, all the while making remarks such as ācompensating for ā¦ā, then an attractive man pulls up in a less costly convertible, and they say āwonder what he has under the hood.ā
Now, if the rolls were reversed, there would have been outcry over how sexist these were. However, the commercials, as they were, are sexist. What I find odd is the reaction. If it were women that were the object of attention, there would be anger. But, since it was men, women, for the most part, found it funny and guys would say ācool.ā
Iām not referring to ātrashy talkā, just perceptions. Funny creatures we are.
Diet Coke ads, they still make them and run them. Commercials are sexist on both sides I think, maybe you canāt have the exact same scenario the other way around but it happens. Lynx/Axe (depending on your side of the pond) is an example. There is the old adage, āsex sellsā, and it works for both sexes depending on what you are advertising.
Even in tech (maybe especially in tech?), I have been to tech conference before with ābooth babesā. If anything that kinda put me off the company, especially since there were a lot of women in the particular community. Iām sure there are some that are comfortable talking to a company with that going on, but Iām not one of those. Lately such things have been very much frowned upon and hasnāt happened so much.
It actually brings me to another things with conferences, over the last year or so it has got to the point where Iām afraid to have a drink at the conference bar and make a joke which could be seen as sexist in case someone overhears. Iām even not comfortable talking to women I donāt already know at conferences (about technical subjects) just in case I say something that could be misinterpreted (unlikely, but the consequences are huge). People have lost their jobs and had their lives destroyed over such things. But Iām getting way off-topic nowā¦
Too bad companies are so insecure that they have to resort to such tactics.
I really have never had such a problem. I think itās because of my natural use of self-depreciating humor. If I can get them laughing at me, it gets across real quick that this guy is harmless. That, and the chaste way I do take a personal interest in people.
This topic started as a critic to a joke Bryan made in the show. Apparently, he was serious. But anyway, several interesting points were made by the Community. Gender equality is a relevant subject today, as it is racism and even slavery (google Qatar slavery World Cup).
Being technology the main focus of the show, I think it is interesting the point made by @jonobacon during the show: in tech companies we have 10% of women, but in Open Source we have 1%. Not sure if the numbers are correct, but the difference is amazing. And it shouldnāt be the case. That makes me sad 
True dat. I think this is due to two things:
- The ātechnologyā world is a much bigger sphere, with more diverse roles, thus a wider spread of areas for both men and women to be part of. The Open Source world is very coder-heavy, thus a smaller scope of participation. I think some women are just not interested in that scope.
- Some men act like dicks, demonstrating disgusting sexist behavior, and this is naturally off-putting.
Convention wisdom in our community would suggest the reason women are not joining up is mainly because of (2), but I think that (1) is the more dominant piece here.
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Iām trying to remember, but was this organization ever mentioned on the show? http://girlswhocode.com/
Iām always serious when Iām joking.
It is true, indeed. My wife, for example, is a far more awesome coder than I. Just is. And Iām man enough to admit it. Yet she is, by her choosing, now a āstay at home momā (more or less).
The realities of biology often dictate that some of our most talented coders have far less time to code ā because they focus on things that are, in my opinion, even more challenging still. Just something that we all need to be cool with, methinks.
I can only speak from impressions and from my own thoughts, so please bear with me and correct my errors here.
I know that the word ālanguageā is used in coding, usually to identify the type, right? Can coding be likened to a language? If so, then, generally speaking, donāt women have a better talent with languages than men? It would seem to me that it would be easier for women to excel at coding than men.
Do not many mothers work, either by choice or necessity? (Many find it demeaning for a person to be a āstay at homeā parent, but I think it is wonderful) If many mothers work, then, why not ācodingā mothers? I do wonder if it is a culture matter that keeps women out of coding.
As a side, @bryanlunduke, are you able to work at home? That would be so nice.
My āformer lifeā was managing programmers. While it was rare that a team would have more than 1 woman, Iād say that women make up at least 3 of my 10 favorite devs Iāv ever worked with (in terms of productivity, code quality and pleasantness to work with). Which suggest to me that women developers are, all things considered, typically a bit better to work with.
Of course thatās not terribly scientific. I think, in my entire career, Iāve managed maybe 100 developers total. So the sample size is pretty small.
Being a dev can be a pretty grueling job sometimes. The death-marches can be pretty obscene sometimes (even with the best teams). And, in my experience, when faced with the prospect of working 80 hour weeks ā the men Iāve worked with have typically been more likely to just grumble a bitā¦ and live with it. Whereas women have been more likely to just straight up say āNope. Thatās a terrible idea. I think Iāll go home and get a good nights sleep and see my family like a normal personā.
In other words: women tend to be smarter about it.
Absolutely. A little bit of travel (events, etc.) but otherwise I sit at home ā with the occasional trip out to the park or childrenās museum or something so the kiddo can play while I type nerdy things.
Actually I think all four of the Bad Voltage hosts work from home nowadays, right guys?
Language in the coding sense is just an abstraction of the language a machine understands and not necessarily a ānaturalā language. Good developers understand what the machine is doing with the language.
I donāt know if thereās been any studies about whether women or men are better at that.
Iāve worked with coding mothers. It doesnāt appear in my experience to be any different from any other type of working mother.
This is me being a bit green, with envy.
Programming does use a language and there are many of them. They are very formal however and not really comparable to natural languages such as English or German. I agree that in general women tend be better than men with natural languages though there is a big overlap: the best men are better than the worst women.
Iām not convinced they make better coders however: I know some brilliant female coders. Itās certainly true that there are more male coders than female ones but is this because men are better at it or are women less motivated to try? I donāt know the answer to this last question.
I urge anyone who is not a programmer to try, even if you start and finish with your first āHello Worldā program you will have gained some knowledge of how computers do what they do.
For the complete beginner I would recommend taking a look at Python: It allows you to just think about solving the problem without having to some of the more mundane concerns such as register size or memory management.
It is installed by default in OSX, all the popular Linux distributions and there is a download link at the link I provided for Windows.