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Christmas Cheer Education Google Programming

School Defied Google and US Government, Let Boys Program White House Xmas Trees 355

theodp writes This holiday season, Google and the National Parks partnered to let girls program the White House Christmas tree lights. While the initiative earned kudos in Fast Company's 9 Giant Leaps For Women In Science and Technology In 2014, it also prompted an act of civil disobedience of sorts from St. Augustine of Canterbury School, which decided Google and the U.S. government wouldn't determine which of their kids would be allowed to participate in the coding event. "We decided to open it up to all our students, both boys and girls so that they could be a part of such an historic event, and have it be the kickoff to our Hour of Code week," explained Debra Knox, a technology teacher at St. Augustine.
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School Defied Google and US Government, Let Boys Program White House Xmas Trees

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  • by Shadow of Eternity ( 795165 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @05:54PM (#48686257)

    they really should be reversing most of those programs. Girls are utterly dominating every aspect of education, including almost all STEM fields, to the point of being nearly 2/3rds of college graduates. At this point they're not "helping" girls, they're blatantly doing nothing more than sabotaging boys even further.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Um... what?!? Having worked in the S, E, and M of the STEM fields, at multiple universities, in multiple countries... you are full of it.

      • He's talking about in education coming through now, I don't see many girls at work, but there are more in my uni class than men.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:26PM (#48686399)

      Whether you like it or not, discrimination against boys is discrimination

      By trying to exclude the boys from the team, Google and the Democrats are telling the world that it is okay to discriminate against the boys

    • by davydagger ( 2566757 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:50PM (#48686503)
      I agree.

      Sexism exists, and is very rampant in society. However, its plainly obvious that the sexism isn't government imposed, its not made by tech geeks, or programs, or education, or business institutions.

      You also have to be kidding me if you think it was a few computer geeks, engineers, or nerds of any era who decided, or at in any way formed mainstream society's gender rules. Before any of the social darwinist apologists come back here with some shitty science, throwing out terms they barely understand, not understanding how they don't apply, because its convienant for their political position, lets discus gender roles in larger society.

      Gender roles come from two places in modern America: One, Churches and other bastation of traditionalism; Two, MTV, advertising, and materialist pop culture. These determine what people think they should be doing. Niether of them promotes women in technology, and its mostly people adherent to the standards set forth from either that self-re-enforce those standards.

      Now this is where I tell you don't look at me. I'm an outcast, a nerd, a hacker, I have no say in the matter, regardless of being gifted with computers, both groups look at me as a freak and an outcast. I didn't make that society. Anything I do to change it will be met with open hostility because I am viewed as a freak, and very low on the totem pole of both. So this is I what I want my fellow techies to do. Simply repeat this, fold your arms, say we simply live in the society you made for us, that we have no say in, and let the mainstream sort their own fucking problems out, and welcome whatever girls want to try tech out with open arms. Also, don't namefag me. If you agree with me, make the idea yours and repeat it in your words, great ideas are meant to be shared.

      I see a lot of us taking sides in the traditionalist vs materialist debate, and its a place where we have no place. The mainstream is looking for someone to blame, and I say we simply fold our arms and reply "its not our fault society isn't the way you want it to be".

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by LordLimecat ( 1103839 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @08:33AM (#48688565)

        Gender roles come from two places in modern America: One, Churches and other bastation of traditionalism;

        Im no expert on any of this, but I have read a little history on the period and I seemed to recall this being generally false. Lo and behold wikipedia agrees:

        The formal education of girls and women began in the middle of the 19th century and was intimately tied to the conception that society had of the appropriate role for women to assume in life....Many early women's colleges began as female seminaries and were responsible for producing an important corps of educators
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]

        In fact, apparently the first women's college in the US was Salem College, a protestant institution established in 1772 by a denomination that was notable for believing in equal gender roles at a time that society did not reflect this.

        The revisionism as regards christianity and its relationships with education and women is astounding to me. You'll get things like this page [rejectiono...swager.net], which allege that the loss of property rights in Rome was due to Christian policy in 306 AD-- despite the fact that Diocletian had just gotten done persecuting the church (as in seizing property and burning churches), and that Constantine would not become (supposedly) Christian for another decade or so. People will talk about the educational backwardism of Christianity, and ignore the role that religious orders played in the creation of universities in europe in the middle ages. Like you, people talk of how Christianity has tried to stifle women's education and utterly ignore its role in the creation of institutions dedicated to their education in a time when society had no desire to do so.

        The mainstream is looking for someone to blame,

        And so are you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      We've tried the patriarchy and it's not really working all that well, quite poorly in fact. Perhaps trying out a matriarchy wouldn't be all that bad. The Mosuo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] seems quite interesting and likely would be far more socially balanced.

      • I love how people referring to "successful" matriarchies always wind up pointing to primitive cultures.
        • I love how people referring to "successful" matriarchies always wind up pointing to primitive cultures.

          Which cultures develop technologically is only occasionally a result of specific leadership and is typically more a result of resources.

      • Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Mosuoculture in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings. Log in or create an account to start the Mosuoculture article, alternatively use the Article Wizard, or add a request for it. Search for "Mosuoculture" in existing articles. Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.

        pseudo-intellectual bullshit. The main problem with patriarchy isn't patriarchy, its capitalism. Patriarchy never existed in a vacuum, but as a mere tool as part of larger systems. But it seems with liberalism, hate filled pseudo-science seems to trumph any real critique of the system. As expected..

        Looks like wikipedia deleted your page because it doesn't mean standards. wonder why. Now off to the dustbin of history along with social darwinism, IQ and the Wealth of Nations, and the rest your politically m

      • The only example of matriarchy[1] in the world resulted in a backwards, primitive, iron-age society which has never produced anything of value for the rest of mankind (or animal-kind, if you will). I don't think that that was what you wanted to show.

        [1] The Mosuo aren't fully matriarchical either, to be honest.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @07:32PM (#48686697)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Notice how proportion of men grows with target age category. I'd say it reflects some widespread notion of gender roles. Like only women should educate kiddies. I bet kindergarten/high school teacher doesn't get paid as well as college professor either..
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Also, that men are rightfully terrified of being alone with small children. All it takes is one mom with a chip on her shoulder to say "molester" and there goes life, freedom, family, career...

      • If you want to fix the imbalance in STEM, fix this one first. There was a study a few years ago that showed that female primary school teachers who were insecure about maths were the biggest reason that girls were put off mathematical subjects. Girls, on average, develop empathy at a younger age and if they have a maths teacher who is not confident, then they pick up on it. If it's a male teacher, it doesn't have any effect. If it's a female teacher, then they learn that maths is hard for girls. Boys a

    • by Lehk228 ( 705449 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @09:04PM (#48687063) Journal
      they're blatantly doing nothing more than sabotaging boys even further

      this is the primary objective of feminism.
  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:01PM (#48686297) Journal

    ...for their terrific job and a wonderful tree display.

    And kudos also to the admins with the balls to tell the administration and Google to fuck off with their politically-correct bullshit.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      I went to the actual web site (https://www.madewithcode.com/) and it doesn't appear to exclude males at all. It is aimed at encouraging women to participate, if you click on the "code the holidays" link it just lets you start learning without even having to sign up, and certainly without declaring your gender.

      The whole controversy seems to be made-up.

  • I know it's not the style to read the articles, but the second link goes to a web site that shows a different story, and if you don't sign up, shoves you to their front page.

    Link bait.

  • There is no reason to believe that there are equil numbers of boys and girls interested in programming. This does not say anything about if there are girls that "can do it", but that different people, different sexes have different interests.

    • There is no reason to believe that there are equil numbers of boys and girls interested in programming.

      There aren't equal numbers of boys and girls, period - more boys are born than girls (it's around 52% IIRC).

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        True. But the ratio hits 50/50 in the US by about age 35 as more boys die. Thereafter it's an accelerating plunge to 80% female by age 80.

  • Makes things worse (Score:4, Insightful)

    by auzy ( 680819 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:26PM (#48686397)

    We do need more women in the tech field, but my feeling is that having exclusively female projects like this can actually widen the gap.

    What it basically says is that girls and boys can't work together, and it doesn't teach guys to work as coworkers with women. Furthermore, boys who wanted to join in, later in life may feel jealous that women always get what they want, and may avoid hiring women.

    A better approach would have been to have 2 trees, 1 for the females, 1 for the males.Nobody would feel left out then.

    • by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @07:33PM (#48686703)

      We do need more women in the tech field

      Why? Honest question.

      No one seems to be up in arms over women being underrepresented as, say, firefighters or airline pilots. No one's pushing men to become hair stylists or librarians. Yet millions and millions of dollars are being spent on exclusionary girls-only events like this, telling girls that they must learn to code. I don't get it. What's wrong with just encouraging kids, whatever genitalia they have, to follow their interests, whatever those may be? If a girl is into tech, or a boy is into makeup, encourage them to pursue those careers and bust up the stereotypes. I don't find sense in telling girls they need to be in the tech field, any more than telling boys they need to grow up and be cosmetologists.

      • We do need more women in the tech field

        Why? Honest question.

        For the benefit of the men, of course. But really, everyone would benefit from more integration of more kinds. When businesses more accurately reflect the makeup of the nation, they better serve the nation. Corporations are legal fictions which could not exist without the nation, so they should serve it to some degree.

      • by auzy ( 680819 )

        Things are a bit different in those occupations though. I'm a male, and there are many women who are avoiding computing simply because of the way they are being treated (I didn't want to believe it either). But, in occupations such as nursing, where there are less men, they aren't finding that men aren't being hired simply because of a persons gender. In fact, they are actively being encouraged to join and hired.

        But women on the other hand are often being treated badly, the moment they contribute to any com

    • by bsolar ( 1176767 )

      What it basically says is that girls and boys can't work together, and it doesn't teach guys to work as coworkers with women.

      It also doesn't teach girls to work as coworkers with men.

  • by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:33PM (#48686435)

    These "Girls Only" programs are bogus and sexist. If they did it "Boys Only" there would be cries of discrimination and lawsuits. It is illegal to do sexual discrimination yet our government does it over and over "Girls Only." Time to cut the crap.

    • Same with other programs. We have Ebony awards which are only for Blacks, Latino awards which are only for Hispanics, and all of the awards in which a white person can participate is required to include all races.
      Racism is still rampant and encouraged in America. You are required to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. There are certain things you can say to one race and not to another. You can defend yourself in your home or place of business from one race but not from another.
  • Dear Ms. Knox (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Sunday December 28, 2014 @06:51PM (#48686509)

    Thank you for restoring my faith.

    You have:
    1. Showed that discrimination is not cool.
    2. That disobedience is sometimes appropriate.

    These are most valuable lessons,

    I look forward to the day when there is gender parity among teaching staff at all public schools.

    • The thing is, you find that as nations get more free and accepting of men and women to do what they please, gender parity isn't something that develops. In fact, some careers stratify even more. This isn't a bad thing, this is because men and women tend to have different interests. When things are fair and equal and you can pursue the career you wish, what they wish on average is different. That doesn't mean there aren't outliers, of course, but that you will find some careers are "gendered" in that one gen

  • The Festivus pole doesn't require blinking lights.

  • Diversity is not about just moving the bigotry and discrimination around from one group to another, nor is it about creating artificial safe spaces that suppress both competition and actual achievement. It is with pleasure I note that apparently the leaders of St. Augustine have realized this and declined to participate in musical bigotry chairs. Let boys and girls, hetero and not, religious and secular, of dark hue and light participate on an equal playing field - defeating the racist meme as youth of al
  • The point is to use the quest for equality to justify penalizing anyone who rises above "equal," thus ensuring that all favors get handed out by the state or its ideological fanatic supporters.

    This resembles... Communism? National Socialism? Totalitarianism? ...something where the agenda of control has replaced trying to achieve anything. We could have had a moon base by now, instead we will all be equal comrades under the People's Reich.

  • Yeah....this is just like Selma...
  • What next? The school could be treating everyone equally regardless of race, gender, or background. Surely this must be stopped ;-)

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