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Wednesday Google hosted a special edition of their annual "Demo Day" event featuring 11 early-stage startup companies founded by women from eight different countries. More than 450 women from 40 different counties applied for a spot, and the winner of the competition was Bridgit, a fast-growing Canadian company which provides a mobile communications platform for construction teams. Online voters also awarded the "Game Changer" title to KiChing, a startup that's actively addressing Mexico's unique e-commerce challenges. But all of the startups at Wednesday's event were already actively raising series-A funding, and "We aim to help connect them to mentors, access to capital, and shine a spotlight on their efforts," said Mary Grove, the director of Google for Entrepreneurs, addressing the Demo Day audience in San Francisco.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 15 2015, @12:33AM
It is fairly sad. I'd like to be proud of my skin color, even if I'm ashamed of the acts of (some) of my ancestors. I'd like to be proud of my gender assigned at birth and the various experiences that's given me, even if that gender doesn't describe me very well. I'd like to be proud that in relation to my mental gender (female), I'm essentially heterosexual.
I would not want an Athiest Demo Day, a Trans Demo Day, a Hetero Demo Day or any of it at all. If I have something worth demoing, I'd like to demo it because it's worth demoing, not because of any of a bajillion labels anybody could come up with that would apply to me.
What I don't understand is why this “two wrongs make a right” discrimination stands. All it does is create even more toxicity.
See, here's the problem. Do I get to be a woman today, or am I an invader today? Do I at least get to be a man or am I just a cis het shitlord all-men in a skirt? Nobody knows!
Ok, pretend you can answer that question. They tell me that trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) has fallen out of favor. So I get to be a woman and I get to demo this thing that I've made, not because it's epic, but because I got let into the woman club on this particular day, probably due to the wet-bulb temperature recorded this morning and the right ascension of the moon today. (I realize I am dangerously close to invoking people with strange skin colors, but after an extensive big data crunch sprint, those were the only two variables I could find where p < 0.05. /s)
Well, ok, here's an intersexed person. They report being bi-gendered and are legally female. Do we need to let him/her in now, too? Or is the fact that they're bigendered exclude them?
Now remember back to that article about the guevedoces. Now what?!
If Mars is in the house of Saturn today, the moon were at a different right ascension, and I was an invader today, then I don't get to demo the thing that I made. Ok, fair enough. But now! I've just returned from a procedure that's implanted a complete female reproductive system grown from stem cells! Now do I get in?
Eh, just lump it all under genderqueer. The confusion! Now we find ourselves in Canonical's shoes for those who remember. It's not just for women. It's not just for women and trans women. It's for cis women, trans women, and genderqueer women!
There, hopefully that clarifies it. More like clear as mud. It's amazing how many problems would be solved if the only thing to consider were the thing I made.
Eh, I realize I'm talking about demographics that are indistinguishable from rounding errors, but they are out there. These things come up. The last time it happened, we wound up with the wonderful term womyn-born-womyn.
The truth is that internalized misogyny is the actual enemy here. No amount of special treatment is going to fix that. All it does is encourage the loonies. The moonbats see this and conclude that there really is some kind of sexism going on here when what's going on is much more complicated and a much more difficult problem to solve.
So, if a moonbat knows one of those evil cis het white male programmers, here's how it goes. A woman who barely graduated high school goes “I wanna be a programmer!” and if he hasn't turned her into a programmer by next week Tuesday, then the moonbat concludes that he must be a shitlord who thinks women shouldn't be programmers. What does the moonbat know about programming or really anything related to computers in general? Nothing at all. Can't even find the power button and thinks the monitor is the CPU. Complete, utter fucking ignorance about programming and computers won't stop the moonbat, so siree! We've gathered the evidence! Assigned the male gender? Check. Professional programmer. Check. Conclusion: tell him to his face he hates women and is personally responsible for the lack of female programmers.
Well, good job, moonbat. You were the 10,000th person to do that to our cis het white male, and you just convinced him that maybe there is something to misogyny after all. (I know, cool story.) Also, true story. Anyway, I perhaps digress, perhaps not.
I've mentored women programmers while presenting as the male gender. (Hey, I figure if the way I dress is the difference between being an employable cis het male shitlord and a homeless woman, eh, people depend on me for food, dress for success, at least for just a little while longer.) The largest obstacles to conquer at the beginning are a few things: computerphobia, mathphobia, internalized misogyny, and now, thanks to the moonbats and gender lunatics, the notion that I'm either going to mansplain or else intentionally go over her head to prove that she can't do it.
Make sure to ask her about her background. Validate her background, even if it's an English degree. You will be pleasantly surprised later. (Naturally, if she does have some knowledge like HTML and CSS, always validate that knowledge no matter how incomplete it is. Again, you'll be pleasantly surprised later.)
The computerphobia is easy to deal with. For about the first six weeks or so, don't. Do everything with pencil and paper. Make a game out of it. Lots of games have arbitrary rules. We introduce the basic tools of programming: truth tables, boolean algebra (always derive it with your student), if, while, let (yes, actually write the word let before your assignments and use :=; that = thing means something completely different in the mathematics the student will be more familiar with—well, unless you're teaching functional programming but chances are you aren't), etc.
The mathphobia I find is often tightly wrapped up in the other barriers. Breaking that down will become easier as the mental barriers begin to fall. Trust me, these barriers are very real, even if they exist only in the mind of the student. One student even led us into a linear algebra exercise. I don't think she had realized before that she was more than capable of working with a Cartesian plane.
When the time comes after about six weeks, then we turn the computer on for the first time. I also like to bring my own device, a laptop or tablet. I boot into GNU/Linux or Android/Linux; she brings up a command prompt. Suddenly she learns an entirely new way of using a general purpose computer. I usually throw them straight into Vim but let them know it's part of the training. We could use notepad very well, but this is a real tool for real programmers. (One could say an elegant editor for a more civilized age, but that would probably just fire off the holy war. I do like to make light of geek culture like that. I'll tell her that there is another editor called EMACS, but that it is evil and there is a holy war that rages through out the internet, but she is free to give it a try if she wants.) Usually the language of choice is Ruby because of how forgiving the syntax is, which is why it's not Netbeans or another actual IDE (just stick to the basics, no need to confuse things with lambda iterators, but that can always come later).
Also, a note about the “royal we.” I probably don't need to use it here, but it is very important to use. Call her a programmer from the first truth table you help her derive. “We programmers” is how you refer to both of you. Beg the question. Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.
At any rate, the barriers will crumble. I wish I could go back and try to apply what I've learned to my earlier failures. It would be an interesting test to see if I'm on to something and if the code.org approach is bunkum.
No amount of special treatment will cause those barriers to crumble. I wish 3rd wave feminism would figure that out. It's about empowerment, not some virtuous victimhood.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @01:30AM
Oh my god it's the schizophrenic again. I'm dead serious, get help.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 15 2015, @01:37AM
Oh, don't worry. The healing process will be in place early next year when my time off comes up. I will use methods I learned from my last psychologist from ACT therapy [wikipedia.org].
I hate to go full Trump, but the method I outlined in GP is effective at creating cisfemale programmers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @02:31AM
I'd suggest an alternative treatment called the DYA method. It's a one-step program:
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 15 2015, @07:14AM
I'd suggest an alternative treatment called the DYA method. It's a one-step program:
Delete Your Account
OK, Runaway, you have made your point, and no one agrees with it, so pack up your objections and your fetus parts and all your Rem. .223 ammo, and just head out to Colorado Springs! I hear it is lovely this time of year, much better than January, and there are lots of people to back you up in defending Jesus and the Bomber Wing of the OMG Nuclear we lost a bomb brigade. You know that in the end, rational people will win. They always do, because, you know, they are rational, and reality has a well known liberal bias. It really is time we shut down the Air Farce Academy out there in Mega-church town, and probably revoked the chaplinships of all those guys with credentials from Corinthian or worse based institutions. I mean heck, half of them cannot even read the Bible, because they cannot read at all! That is all well and good if you are an incestuous church like the Westboro Baptists, or the Assemblies of God, or Calvary Chapel, or any Pentacostal (ew, snakes!), or Methodist, or anything the derives from the swinging dong of Joseph Smith or the Prophet Mohammed, but for the rest of us (given that the list has thrown off most), none of this matters. We are fine with Chelsea Manning, and with our own Tsubasa, mostly because we do not ascribe to things we cannot understand. Do you understand God? Of course you don't because it is something designed to be beyond your understanding by persons who want to rape your young boys, and possibly girls, if there could be some celestial benefit to you if the sacrifice was made! Oh, sweet Jesus in your underpants! I hear that Christians, Christians of all stripes, not just the pedophiles, are upset at the rest of humanity mocking them. Well here's a thought: What if us mocking you is just channelling Jesus mocking your for being so stupid in your interpretation of what he said? You know this is more than possible, in fact, it is most likely the correct reading of this Prophet guy who hung out with prostitutes and brothers of indeterminate gender identity. I mean, Andrew? Even his cross was sideways!! Conclusion: There are no Christians left today, they are all Manicheanists, who want to believe in evil more than good, and in that they are right in line with ISIS, who is persecuting the people who actually believe this!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @12:05PM
Do the schizophrenics come in packs now? Arist, I'd like to refer you to the tried-and-true DYA method.