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There are 10 comments on SheHacks Boston Student Organizers Are #makingthenewnormal

  1. “When I walked in some guy came up to me and was like, ‘Do you even code?’” she says, imitating his sneer. “And I’m like, ‘Look at my laptop, it says Girls Who Code. Of course I belong here.’”

    I do not believe for a minute that this exchange went the way it’s depicted in this story. Sorry…

    Also, there is a big difference between being able to code and simply doing this: “Just copy and paste a couple of lines of code and press run”

    1. I think this comment highlights a lot of the things that are wrong with the gender gap in the technology field. The fact of the matter is, women often face issues like this in classes, hackathons, meetings, interviews, etc. If you don’t believe it, count yourself lucky because not everybody is able to pretend it doesn’t happen.

  2. You can’t demand so much gender restricted and gender-specific treatment and then talk about equality.

    Little anecdotes like getting sneared at are being used to explain away the fact that less women choose to pursue cs.

    There are so many female only programs hackathons, bootcamps etc, many with guaranteed job placement regardless of formal education,it’s not even funny.

    This is for a population that is better reresented in numbers than males in their age group in higher education period. Better pay and social status than males in their age group as well.

    This scourge sexism in cs is basically non existent. It just used as an excuse for the way our society goes out of it’s way to cater to the needs of immensly solipsistic mostly white women.

  3. @An Immigrant — You obviously don’t know the young woman who said this. I do, and it’s completely credible. And it happens to women in male-dominated fields all the freakin’ time.

    As for starting out by pasting code other people have written, it’s a great first step. And you go on from there.

  4. To “An Immigrant”
    LOL. Thanks for confirming the article.
    As a white male CS professor I see too much of “An Immigrant”‘s attitude.
    If you only open your eyes and ears for one second, you can see this attitude everywhere.

    Keep up the good work Fiona.

  5. How many gender restricted environments will be enough for women pursuing CS?

    The demand for women-only environments at some point is counter productive if the goal is inclusivity.

    There are so many female-only organizations, hackathons, and bootcamps, and like the thumbnail shows, this is mostly catering to 20 and 30 somethings who are alrady better represented by numbers as the majority of higher education graduates and have good outcomes compared to young males.

    Like the organizer said, she is an “unofficial” CS major, but in that case the goal should be to major in CS.

    Anecdotes of sexism like the one in this article are dubious and being used to justify an entire industry that allows a frankly already privileged group of people a way to bypass a degree into tech jobs.

  6. As others have noted, prime example of prejudice against Men and Misandry. These women are expected to work along side their male colleagues. However, academia seems to have a skewed perception of the real world as to suggest women-only competition.

    How does it sound to say Men only Hackathon, or Men only Nursing Schools, or Men only Psychology Training.

    It is shameful such biased and sexist hackathons are given funding. I will personally boycott and refuse to accept work for any of the companies that support such bias.

    Academia ruined gender, not fixed it. The polarization we see in our society right now is the direct result of academia’s selfish desire to empower a gender at the expense of another one. Typical white succumb to femmie absurdness (in response to Ed Lulofs).

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