Google-Advised Disney Cartoon Aims To Convince Preschool Girls Coding's Cool 254
theodp writes: Cereal and fast food companies found cartoons an effective way to market to children. Google is apparently hoping to find the same, as it teams with Disney Junior on a cartoon to help solve its computer science "pipeline" problem. The LA Times reports the tech giant worked with the children's channel on the new animated preschool series Miles From Tomorrowland, in an effort to get kids — particularly girls — interested in computer science. The program, which premieres Friday, introduces the preschool crowd to Miles Callisto, a young space adventurer, and his family — big sister (and coder extraordinaire) Loretta and their scientist parents Phoebe and Leo. Google engineers served as consultants (YouTube video) on the show. "When we did our computer science research, we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys," said Julie Ann Crommett, Google's program manager for computer science in media. Can't wait for the episode where Google and Disney conspire to suppress Loretta's wages!
It worked so well for Barbie Coder.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It worked so well for Barbie Coder.... (Score:5, Funny)
It's only because the book was misnamed. It should have been "Barbie MBA". Get other suckers to do all the work then take all the credit, with a side order of breaking stuff.
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Design shit on an iPad and give it to the "boys" to knock out some C# modules to slurp back DB2 recordsets for your shitty app. You go girl.
it's more likely this will confuse girls into thinking it's cool and then them following it for a while, as opposed to actually organically developing an interest in it.
My mother was telling me I liked things that weren't true until I was 27 and figured out "mom, I don't like that. why do you keep saying that I do? I'm the expert on me, not you." If a grownup had told me I actually wanted to play with Barbies, so I should play with Barbies, I would have gotten really confused because I trusted them to not l
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I think kids often don't really know what they like. My son has played a variety of sports -- soccer, baseball, basketball and football. Football he only played one season and halfway through that season he complained a lot -- was kind of afraid of the contact and it was "boring" (new kids without experience usually just play line positions, not ball-handling positions).
Last fall, soccer and football seasons overlapped and he didn't know what to do. He was leaning towards football but we had to remind hi
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Kids have very limited experience of the world, since they have only lived for a few years. Part of education is giving them experience so that they can figure out what they like.
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right. but they don't seem interested in giving experience, they seem more interested in shoveling children around to fit their cart-before-the-horse assumption that development teams would be 50/50 guys/girls if there were no stereotypes.
that sort of shoveling is what confused me for so long-- lots of people I knew better than telling me they were an expert on what _I_ was feeling and experiencing, and discrediting _my_ subjective experience in order to fit _their_ agenda. They weren't bringing me any free
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oh no (Score:5, Funny)
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I always use:
xset c 100
BRB, for some reason my office mates are walking towards my desk with a baseball bat. I guess they want to play baseball?
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They can't even get basic computer use or hacking correct in a $200 million movie. How are they going to accurately represent software programming in a cartoon? The computer will probably beep every time she types like some 90's movie.
This is actually a job for a good Japanese animation/manga studio, not Disney. There is an entire Japanese manga/anime genre for doing that kind of stuff. Hikaru No Go [myanimelist.net] has inspired me to learn the game of go (although, I've only read the manga, I haven't watched the anime itself). Beck [myanimelist.net] has inspired me to learn to play the guitar. Beck is actually a great anime series (that is nothing like the feel-good oversimplified typical American cartoons/animated movies that we know Hollywood and Disney to produce).
A
Re:oh no (Score:5, Funny)
Perfect. Now we just need a campaign to convince Americans that anime is cool.
Because you know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Any industry White Males work in needs to be diversified.
Presently 12% of men older than 45 in the US, by US Census data, have never married and will never have kids. 1955 - 1995 that was >5%. Demographic is half poor, half in the 80th percentile of wage earners.
The trend is, about a third of Men in the US will never marry, never have kids; if you're in highschool in grade 8-12, chances are, one in three guys will never have kids or marry. Majority is white.
Japan - same numbers, they're presently at 25% over 45 never married no kids, about 50% of men will never marry, never have kids.
That doesn't include half of the children in this country are being raised without a father in home.
Keep up the great diversification work, the last time we had this many men without families was the dark ages. As those men age, they realize they have nothing to lose. This creates instability, you are creating a demographic nightmare that will cause a lot of people to end up dead.
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Yeah, all those elderly hooligans are such a menace, what with their muggings, their drive-by's, their suicide bombings, their oh wait, old people don't do those things. Old people with nothing to lose just die.
Not that that would be a reason to ignore the problem except guess what? Women [ons.gov.uk] in the industrialized world aren't having children either. And guess what else? Some people don't want to have kids. Perhaps as many as 25%? Maybe more? Have you done a poll lately? Hint: No. This topic is very u
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You don't say it specifically but this seems to be an argument for keeping women in the home and non-whites out if the workplace. If you meant to suggest a different solution please correct me, but that seems to be the logical conclusion from your argument.
The problem in Japan is well understood and has nothing to do with diversity. Children are too expensive. Women are somewhat reluctant to have them because employers don't support mothers very well. Thus men and women don't see the point of marrying.
The s
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Presently 12% of men older than 45 in the US, by US Census data, have never married and will never have kids.
So much for the idea that the gay/lesbian population is only 1%-2%. Better make it easier for same-sex couples to adopt ...
Nope, just ugly.
So where do all the ugly people come from, if ugly people don't reproduce? After all, the slogan of Molson's Brewery was "Molson's - Helping ugly people have kids since 1786"
All joking aside, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's also a really shallow way to judge people.
Now, back to my point: It's been said for a long time that the official stats have probably underestimated the LGBT population, in part because of public attitudes. Why is it so unacceptable to consider that this might be an addi
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I dunno. This is totally stereotypical, and perhaps self fulfilling.... But in my experience, most IT guys (with a few exceptions) tend to be shy, socially awkward growing up, and "nice guys". Girls don't go for this. Average, nice, guys don't get any traction on Tinder or Match.com. Even the really plain jane girls seem to think they deserve a Channing Tatum and will pass on the slightly overweight or pimply faced computer geek. They will take the good looking guy or trashy bad boy over and over until the
Really? (Score:3)
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Yes, very weak character/story development. And it promotes a lie: "science" might be cool, but I can assure you not one bit of my work week involves spaceships.
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Well, still could work. But that's really rare. I could only quote two examples where the engeneer either is the hero (McGyver) or saves the day (Star trek. Usually by reversing some polarity...)
But yeah, in all other shows the clever guy is usually the uncool nerd. (Riptide, anyone?)
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Character stereotypes? (Score:2)
Will they have the standard character stereotypes of the lovable, but well intentioned bumbling male paired with the more introverted, but take control female that seems to have permeated every other TV show?
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This is Unix, I know this [youtube.com].
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They already did that with their earlier girl-power show Kim Possible.
The reason it's thought of as a boy's field (Score:3, Insightful)
You wanna know why programming is thought of as a field for boys? Because to be really good at programming takes an almost obsessive devotion to honing your craft at a young age, and girls are far too social to spend their summers in front of a computer in the basement.
As a side note, this "everyone can code" stuff irritates the hell out of me. Yes, everyone can code just like everyone can play Chopsticks on the piano. But there's a world of difference between the coding that "everyone can do" and the kind of skill and breadth of knowledge required to land a job at Google.
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Because to be really good at programming takes an almost obsessive devotion to honing your craft at a young age, and girls are far too social to spend their summers in front of a computer in the basement.
Stereotype much? How about the programmers who only got their first access to a computer as adults? It's not like Woz or Jobs grew up with computers as kids ...
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Jobs was never a programmer and Woz was involved in computers and electronics long before they met.
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There's stereotyping, and there's statistical significance.
One is reality regardless of whether or not you like it.
Re:The reason it's thought of as a boy's field (Score:5, Insightful)
Programmers who got their first computers as adults don't exist. If you were a real programmer you'd know that.
So where did the first computers come from?
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I work on mobile at Facebook.
Sorry, we're talking about real programmers here.
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But seeing as you want to use the 70s, how many females are prepared to sit at home and learn to code? Not many. Girls / woman have just as much access to the same tools, tech and information as those born with a penis, they choose not to access it.
In the '70s nobody had a PC. The original PC - the IBM 5150 - was only released in 1981. Before that, most consumer computers were pretty much sold as expensive toys. So pretty much NOBODY was learning how to do serous coding except at the universities. There was no Internet, and CompuServe was expensive at $10/hr (more like $30/hr In today's terms) for 1200/2400 baud dial-up. So the vast majority of the population had zero access to sit at home with a computer and learn programming in the '70s.
So spare us your stereotyping bullshit. Five decades of school, college and business data shows us the choices made by most females is that they aren't interested in learning how stuff works, and how to pull it apart, change it and rebuild.
So all the
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That, and the "Being social" thing is also heavily reinforced with targeted children's shows.
There's a feedback loop between targeted television, and the biases those shows target. EG-- the marketing notion of "Girls are social! Let's make shows about girls being social, to target girls!" works-- and causes girls to relate being social with being a girl-- reinforcing the marketing ploy.
It is this latter feedback that has had such a negative impact on (female participation in) computer culture since the 80s
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For the same reason that really physically athletic kids didnt become computer nerds when seeing early computer commercials.
The kids tried, found it was too hard (For them personally), and decided it wasn't for them.
That's a far cry from excluding a whole gender based on cutlural peer pressure though.
"Being good at something" is a powerful self-esteem booster. Not everyone is equally physically fit, or on level feild of play mentally. Some are biased one way, others the other. Mental skills, like Computer
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I would add that it also doesn't matter whether or not the cream of the crop includes females, although I see no legitimate reason it wouldn't. It isn't like you have to land a job at Google or some other huge tech company to be successful. I don't know a single programmer that was honing their craft at a young age unless you mean learning to think in a logical fashion. My Father has worked writing assembly code for mainframes for most of his career and all of the really succesful places he worked focused o
Lies, lies, lies (Score:2)
Kids are going to feel disappointed and cheated when they realize programming isn't as quick, easy, and pretty like all the fun UIs in the show.
The Featurette on youtube didn't show any actual coding. It showed a bunch of MEL that's generated as the artist used the GUI. I am 99.9% certain that the artist didn't create the character in MEL and instead used the modeler tool. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they wanted to talk about programming, they could have shown some of the cool Maya plugins PR
What about the No. 1 reason? (Score:3)
we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys
Well, that's great, but if the No. 1 reason is that girls just aren't as interested in coding as boys (generally/on average) then how far are you going to get?
Re:What about the No. 1 reason? (Score:4, Interesting)
Prior to the 1980s, the number of women working in computer science was about on par with the male demographic.
What happened, was the introduction of the home computer, which was marketed as a boy's toy. Boys were encouraged to become computer experts early, girls were de-facto conditioned to believe that computing was for boys, and the demographic diverged splendidly.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money... [npr.org]
It isn't that something biological in the female's brain makes them not as intrinsically interested in computers-- it is that culturally, we have conditioned them to stay away from computers.
Re:What about the No. 1 reason? (Score:5, Insightful)
If all boys were encouraged, why is it that only the nerdy/geeky boys really got into it ?
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Because learning to use those old dinosaur computers was much harder than the point-click (or touchscreen) interfaces of today? To get good at it, you had to be dedicated, and most of the "Cool kids" had other things to be dedicated to, like playing sports?
The argument's a red herring anyway. The argument is about the disparity between male and female participation, not on what segment of a single gender's demographic is "Nerdy" or not.
Judging by historical statistical data, the "Nerdiness" factor is mostly
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Wait, WHAT?
What he said:
If all boys were encouraged, why is it that only the nerdy/geeky boys really got into it ?
Eg, he wants to know why, if all males were targeted by the advertising, why only a subset of those males really embraced the outcome the marketers wanted.
I answered THAT question, and pointed out that it is a red herring; The "nerdiness" demographic is conserved by BOTH genders, with a tiny bias toward males.
That's what the statistics show, and continue to show in other STEM vocations.
That isn'
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No. Almost every engineering field skews heavily male, as does computer science. Biology and health-related fields all skew female. Mathematics and Chemistry approximate parity and Physics skews male but not as heavily as computer science and engineering.
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Most of the programmers I know are not nerds. Most are just ordinary people who do it as a job, no more nerdy than other engineers or skilled clerical workers on average.
It seems like in the US there is more of a divide between nerds and "jocks" or whatever you call them. It's not so polarised in Europe. Maybe that's part of the problem in the US. Programming isn't just for nerds, any more than video games are despite their image.
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Nice rewrite of what actually happened there but lets not let facts get in the way of your standard issue feminist argument.
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The article cites at least some data.
Your argument provides none.
Could you please provide your data for analysis?
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Prior to the 1980s, the number of women working in computer science was about on par with the male demographic.
False. CS degrees for women peaked in the mid-80s around 35%. It has, however, decreased since then, to around 20%, and even as low as 12% at some schools. Any explanation is speculative, at best. Asserting that women are culturally conditioned to not be interested in computers, though, is actually pretty insulting. It's saying that they're not smart or strong enough to make their own decision
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The implication of "Insult" is purely your own bias peeking through.
People do make their own decisions, but they dont make those decisions in a vacuum. They make them based on their subjective experiences, and cultural emulation starts heavily in childhood.
This is why highly religious families tend to have highly religious children, etc. It is also why propoganda works, and a number of other such fun things.
Rather than "Being offended" by the statement, by trying to straw-man in some hidden message about h
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It's called a feedback loop, AC.
If you note the trends, there WAS indeed a slight demographic disparity between males and females that was consistent-- but not NEARLY as pronounced as the current one. Marketing to this "leading" demographic caused a feedback loop, where the leading demographic REALLY started to lead, and the non-targeted demographic stopped being in-step with the first.
So, in essence-- Marketing Drones said "There's a 5% difference between male interest and female interest in computing! We
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So, in essence-- Marketing Drones said "There's a 5% difference between male interest and female interest in computing! We need to market to the male demographic to capture those 5% extra potential sales!" Industry execs said "OK!"--- Girls see all the boy-oriented computer commercials, get discouraged and or turned off by the flagrantly selective depiction, conclude that computers are for boys, and boom-- as the next generation hits the market, HUGE disparity between computer interest between the genders.
Maybe, but in that scenario the disparity should have started out small and grown over time. My anecdotal experience suggests that is not what happened, number of women at the Commodore 64 pizza party of 300 = 0. The C64 was the first practical & affordable computer you could own as a home user (circa early 1980s), the disparity shouldn't have been fully developed yet if your marketing theory is correct. My theory is that guys, especially betas, are just more likely to obsess about weird hobbies (mod
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Ask a young boy if he thinks being a nurse is a girl's job or not.
Nevermind that to become a doctor, you have to become a CNA first in most instances, just for the clinical care experience.
In fact-- here's a little thought experiment for you. I will name some professions, and you tell me the gender that first pops int your mind.
1) Pilot
2) Flight attendant.
3) Gas station attendant
4) Sales associate
5) Human Resources director
6) CEO
7) Software Engineer
8) Fashion designer
9) Cosmotogist
10) Genetic researcher
Now
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For grins:
1) Pilot
2) Flight attendant.
3) Gas station attendant
4) Sales associate
5) Human Resources director
6) CEO
7) Software Engineer
8) Fashion designer
9) Cosmotogist
10) Genetic researcher
Now-- Explain your answers.
1: I'm a frequent traveler and I can't remember if I've ever heard a woman's voice over the intercom to give flight status
2: I'm seeing more and more men in this position nowadays, but I usually think of a woman
3: Most of the ones I see are guys.
4: Either. I shop at a multitude of places.
5: Same as above. I've worked in enough places to have seen diversity in that regard.
6: Marissa Mayer, but I might be an exception because I've been reading about her lately.
7: First one I could think of is fema
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Ok, Let's focus on these answers that you have wider selection sets to make a mental image over than just people you know.
That would be 1-5, and 10.
1)
You say that you have never heard a female pilot over the intercom. How strongly does this paint the image that pilots are all male? (Or, how shocked would you be to hear a female pilot informing you of mid-air turbulence?) Would you say this would be encouraging for women to become pilots?
According to the Airline Pilots Association, only 5% of commercial airc
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Well, that's great, but if the No. 1 reason is that girls just aren't as interested in coding as boys (generally/on average) then how far are you going to get?
If 40% didn't do it for the no.1 reason and 30% didn't do it for the no.2 reason then you'd get 30% more.
Stupid question, stupid answer.
Lorettagate? (Score:2, Funny)
Or an episode, where she sleeps with journalist to get better review for her application... after all, this is not something which should be ridiculed or condemned, right?
The problem is... (Score:3)
nailed it! (Score:2)
HOLYSHITFUCKIJUSTFIXEDTHEENTIREPROBLEMSWITH GIRLSANDCS! major idea bomb. so first observation, this goog initiative will fail, because kids don't want to be told what's cool. second observation, the secret to engaging with girls is through SMS. Subset observation, it blows me away that girls spend so much time on their phones because it looks like dorky boys with their faces in a game boy. conclusion. make a robot-style thing, like a roomba or something cutesy for kids. have somebody send controls to it by
Propaganda (Score:2)
So at what point does using kids shows to try to create interest in this topic cross the line from 'marketing' to 'targeted propaganda'?
I'm all for more women in programming, but I think they should come to it on their own rather than be indoctrinated.
Let people who love it do it, rather than creating more of the 'I don't like it but it pays well and I can always find a job' MCSEs of the 90s.
What would a MS/Disney cartoon be like? (Score:2)
It would be about a little girl who can code, and has the superpower of not asking for a raise!
If Disney really want to help kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Have the cool kids be good at school
Have kids be unashamed about doing well in school.
If you must have a comic relief buffoon have him be good school
Do not promote ignorance and or stupidity as a good thing.
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Kid plays a musical instrument instead of partying: "I have no life."
Kid programs on a computer instead of partying: "He has no life."
Kid works hard and wins a golf tournament: "He must not have a very normal life, he works so hard."
A huge secret: working hard at something you love is a way better life than partying all the time. Just ask Johnny Manziel.
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americans, wake up! you won't find coding jobs (Score:3)
in the future, it will be done by 'cheap world labor'. ie, NOT YOU. I see every day in the bay area; there are so few americans doing software work in silicon valley, that you only have to connect the dots to see that this field is QUICKLY DRYING UP and won't be viable for US based folks (who want to be above poverty level) in the future.
maybe 5 yrs, maybe 10 yrs. 20 yrs tops. it shows all signs of going to 3rd world countries who can 'think and work remotely'.
thinking jobs (or IP jobs) just don't make sense locally anymore. companies don't want to pay (in their minds, 'overpay') and I don't see this trend reversing (how could it? we are greedy capitalists and don't care for our fellow locals; and so since cost is ALL that matters, it WON'T be done in the US anymore).
so, putting your kids thru college for software? what a waste of time, money and disservice to THEM!
I hate this. I spent my whole friggin life being good at software and gaining tons of (what I thought was) valuable experience. but its not valued! only 'time to market, speed and low cost' matters. quality is a has-been.
sure, there are some counter examples, but being a bay area resident for over quarter of a century, I've seen this trend and its a very obvious clear trend to anyone who's been here long enough. there USED to be a good software job market here. now, its drying up and all you see in companies are h1b's! and soon, even those won't be viable anymore.
please, see the writing on the wall. save your kids the upset and expense of going into a field that has, by the time they are ready for it, dried up.
very sad. depressing. but lets be honest, here. we all see this, don't we?
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>> in the future, it will be done by 'cheap world labor'. ie, NOT YOU.
I call bullshit. I've worked in several comapnies that have each tried outsourcing software development projects and without exception they've ALL failed due to bad quailty. Thankfully many if not most US companies are finally deciding that outsourcing software development as a cost-cutting exercise just doesn't work.
Yes, there is a shortage, but maybe for a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
It's 2015, and most of the egregious geek stereotypes have changed significantly. But, the development and IT industries are still very similar. Development is a very solitary experience, as is IT once you get out of run of the mill support. I know I've spent stretches of a few hours digging through log files, troubleshooting an intermittent problem, etc. by myself. Even with agile development, pair/team programming, and every other coding fad that makes people work together, there is a lot of time spent alone solving problems. I like doing this -- it fits my personality type. Do most women? Probably not; I'm guessing most would rather be in social situations. Do some? Sure, I've worked with a bunch.
Being married to a female, and now having a daughter, I can safely say that men and women are very different creatures. I think women self-select out of IT and development mainly for the following reasons:
- Perceived lack of socialization, and yes, the nerd stereotypes are still there to a lesser extent.
- Especially in workplaces that suck, the work/life balance is screwed up. My wife and I both work, I'm in IT and she's got a corporate finance job. We are both incredibly lucky to have good employers who don't death-march us on a regular basis. I know many more people who don't have this luxury. If you're female, and are wired like most females, you will want to take care of your children more than spending extra hours at work. I feel that way too, and this is coming from someone who really loves my job and loves digging into strange problems.
- Women are smart, and they see the writing on the wall for the IT/dev industry. Now that it's "easy" to program an application for a phone, and more aspects of systems management are automated, there will be an inevitable reduction in employment and salaries across the board. These days, you really have to be on top of your game to stay employed at the higher salaries, and be constantly learning. There are a lot of jobs that have less of the constant retraining, are more stable, and have a better balance.
- Especially in the SV startup/web/social media sphere, the rise of the "asshole brogrammer" stereotype as evidenced by many stories all over the tech press might be scaring women away too. This is kind of the opposite end of the nerd spectrum -- now that development is open to more people, the more extroverted fratboy types who got through CS are founding startups and getting themselves into sexual harassment trouble.
Do I think any of this encouragement works? Not really. I think what would work is to keep developing girls' logic, problem solving and math skills at an early age. Those who excel at these and can handle all the other crap that comes with an IT/dev job will gravitate toward it. Others won't, and we just have to live with that.
Recently I've been coding with a Lesbian... (Score:2)
and I asked her how she felt about how there are few women coders, and surprisingly her answer was that she was happy with that because she enjoyed working with mostly men, because she "could avoid all the cattiness and emotional bullshit" and just concentrate on work.
Maybe we should focus on recruiting just the lesbian part of the female workforce then? ;)
Representative family? (Score:2)
Seems to me that having the parents both be scientists defeats the purpose. If you want to appeal to most girls, I'd think you'd want to have a more "average" family, not show how daughter of scientists does sciency stuff. Maybe show how daughter of wage workers helps solve family/work problems by coding. For example, my first useful coding job was a score-keeping program for my mother so she didn't have to do it by hand for her entire bowling league.
Female not the lead? (Score:2)
To me the effort sounds pretty badly done, the female coder being in a secondary role? How is that supposed to convince anyone coding is cool? It seems more like a prep job for a life where you are a mad coder - who has to work for Miles clones running the actual business. Thanks for the indoctrination video Google!
I say that as someone who thinks that solving the problem of too few women interested in computer work being the real issue that needs fixing. I don't see this helping in any way.
Young girls
Google could advise exects to increase salaries... (Score:2)
And provide a little training to experienced programmers who want to learn new skills. Their faux shortage of experienced, competent programming staff would disappear in a year.
Of course, this is beyond the comprehension of a newly minted MBA or HR director. They want money-saving flashy miracles that will get them their next bonus in the next quarter, before they move on to avoid the next re-org. Solving problems is irrelevant - to be avoided if it interferes with the next crazy bonus scheme and all of its
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I'd say it probably has more to do with equal opportunity laws not being excempted by H1B hire status.
Specifically, gender demographics biting them in the ass in this industry.
(Evil Human Resources Drone #1)
"We need more H1Bs to keep wages cheap--- But OMG-- Most of the H1B applicants are male too! That means we have to pass over H1B applicants TOO to meet our new PR demographic split!"
(Evil Human Resources Drone #2)
"Hey, I have this great idea! Let's use H1B labor NOW to drive down the wages of IT industry
Re:Fuck Google (Score:5, Interesting)
The really hilarious implication here is that young boys code because society portrays coding as "cool" for boys.
Really? What society is that?
Take a peek at the adolescent reality of pimply-faced, never-gonna-get-laid young geeks and the truth becomes clear: Young males code *despite* it's complete LACK of coolness ...because they like it.
And therein lies the truth of most gender-heavy careers: The issue was not, and has never been one of innate capacity. It is one if interest. And interest breeds capacity.
Men and women LIKE different things. To argue with this point is to push ideology in front of empiricism.
Young chess aficionados spend thousands and thousands of hours watching chess games. Why? Because they like it. That's why chess grandmasters are men. And it's why there are women's chess championships. To suggest that some patriarchy is at work is laughable. But feminists insist that this is the case.
We are expected to believe that 90 pound, bespectacled chess geeks who spend their days fantasizing about even having a conversation with a female are somehow intimidating women out of the field.
In software the same dynamic exists. But feminists ignore the thousands of hours that geeky teenage boys spent along staring at CRT's, look only at the hiring patterns of large firms, and cry "patriarchy".
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The issue was not, and has never been one of innate capacity. It is one if interest. And interest breeds capacity.
Interest and capacity go hand in hand. Very few people are interested in pursuing things they lack the capacity for.
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All the latest neuroscience shows that new neural pathways develop in response to activity
To a point, yes.
Nobody is innately a badass coder.
No, but some people have the innate abilities that can turn them into a badass coder, while others don't. Nobody is born as a concert pianist, but some people are born with a feel for music that allows them to become one.
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An "innate ability" would imply a genetic cause, which as we know from experience doesn't exist.
Sorry, what? How do you explain someone like Mozart? I could play the piano every single day for the rest of my life and never even be close to being as talented as he was at like five years old. Clearly there was something more than just "practice" at work for savants like him.
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Why do people think that brains are all exactly the same? Of course there are genes for intelligence- that's what separates humans from chimps after all. That a complex combination and interaction of genes, upbringing and nutrition might play a part in intellect and interest is almost certainly true. The fact that there are things under the umbrella of "intellectual disability" pretty much proves that not all brains are the same. Look at X-linked intellectual disability [wikipedia.org] and try to tell me that genetics ha n
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anybody who spends time coding and really thinking about why the code works the way it does and how to improve it is going to get good eventually
I know quite a few people who are coding every day, and still suck at it.
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It's neither fish nor fowl.
1. If you have an innate capacity, you'll pursue things constantly and "practice makes perfect".
2. If you don't have an innate capacity, you can force yourself to pursue things and, again, practice makes - well, not perfect, but better than if you hadn't practiced. It make also bring out innate capacity that wasn't originally apparent, in which case you get promoted to category #1.
The major difference between the two is that people in category #2 aren't going to push as hard or as
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Huh? Loads of people pursue careers they lack capacity for: Sports, acting, art, writing, etc.
Sure. And I can pursue to be a professional guitarist. Or porn star.
Ron Jeremy should be a beacon to you.
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Hey, that's how I got into it ... why in 1981 I was assured that being a nerd was a sure ticket to fame, fortune, and women swooning over me.
No, wait, it was the other one ... mockery, social outcast, and no play with the hunnies.
Come to think of it, that part came first and then the coding.
Awww, crap.
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Ours, Circa 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
As for empirical study, the rates of CS involvement with women closely followed those with men until about the 80s, when the home computer showed up on the scene, and the advert material focused almost exclusively on male demographics.
That's what the historical data shows.
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Utter bullshit. In 1972, women made up about 20% of computer programmers in the US. This narrative about the personal computer is a recent fabrication. In fact, women's participation in the field hit a local maximum around 1984.
There was an earlier era starting during WWII
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And you assert that it has to be because of advert material focused almost exclusively (weasel words) on male demographics? You have some kind of concrete proof the advertising material came before a change in demographics?
You can theorize on the effects of advertising all you want but you have no way to quantify or even study the advertisements of the time. The only concrete historical data of the two things you just listed is "when the home computer showed up on to the scene". Which is would make a much
greater supply, thus cheaper employees (Score:2)
if we can get women coding, the pool of applicants is much larger and we don't have to permit more H1-B visas to get that effect. Which is great for our financials.
which reminds me, I thought their motto was "do no evil"?
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I laughed, and he was right. Not everything in the world that is good is cool. Programming is good.
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It's not about lack of interest out forcing people to like stuff. It's about giving kids the opportunity to find out if they are interested, and then making sure there are no gender based barriers in their ways if they want to pursue it.
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Mother is neither an arbitrary nor a meaningless role.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01... [imdb.com]
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You seem to fail to understand why people keep saying that. The only "evidence" you have of women not being able to choose computer science as a career path is that there are less of them choosing it.
"Women being predisposed to liking different things is fine but there's not enough of them liking this because they are being discouraged which is obvious because not enough of them like it."
Begging the question.
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(General disclaimer - these are my own thoughts/opinions and are a generalization. They're not a scientific study, and of course you'll be able to find exceptions and outliers. "At my school" and "but my cousin" don't count unless you think they're something that is generalized to a majority of cases.)
So you think your anecdotes and screeds are different than those of others why?
If you want to talk about the expectations of capital S society (seriously society isn't a proper noun; capitalizing it makes you seem unhinged) on geeky men it is that the only way for a geeky man to redeem himself is through saving the damsel. If they don't do that they usually turn into villains (every super villain ever). Which is interesting considering this new influx of dweeby guys that think media has a huge effect on peo
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Do you seriously think that companies are capable of planning 15 years into the future? Most CEOs can't see beyond they next quarter's profit numbers.
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Comment on wage suppression is spot on. These fuckers are evil. There's an agenda here, like they know they can hire women at 76% the cost of a male.
The idea is to suppress EVERYONE's wages by increasing the overabundance of programmers even more. I'm just glad my daughters didn't follow me into the field.
Re:Fuck Google (Score:4, Interesting)
pretty much what I said in my last post.
the field is already saturated and I, as a born-and-raised american, can't find a job in the bay area (I'm also over 50, and I admit that's a big part of it) even with nearly 30 yrs of software experience.
guiding young people into the software field - for anything other than personal use (ie, not a day job that pays the bills) is doing a disservice to our own people.
companies are brutal and refuse to support people in their own local society. they only care about low-cost, above all, to the exclusion of all.
you think americans will still be hired for 'grunt software work' in 10 or 20 yrs? no way! not even h1b's will be given the work since it will be cheaper for africa (probably the next geo to take over 'cheap remote work' once india and china have had wages go 'too high') to do the work.
its very clear that the cost of living in the US will never be competitive to overseas work. and being able to think and type does NOT require you to set even one foot on US soil.
US companies will be 'mangement houses' at best, with some token low-wage support folks here, just to say we have a US presence. but all the real work will be done overseas.
want job security: do something physical. hang wallboard, do plumbing, car repair, gardening. all the stuff that you were told NOT to go into (isn't that a switch?). but physical things can't be done remotely. they won't be high paying but SOME pay is better than being out of work for months at a time, every few years (a cycle that I'm put into, by virtue of my age and being 'too experienced').
do you see wages and life balance going UP in software? I don't. and it won't change. the hey-day of being in software and living in the US is on the decline and there's only so much time left before it bottoms out entirely.
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The real problem is that so many people, even here on Slashdot, are in denial of the new reality, and will stay so until it happens to them. They have this idea that, worst case scenario, they can always go into consulting or developing mobile apps. There isn't enough demand for everyone to do that now, and it's only going to get worse.
Better to take the life lessons learned from paying your dues and putting it to work doing something different once the idiocy of the development process has sucked the bloo
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You mean the latest bullshit data. If this were truly the case why would you EVER hire men?
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Quite. Though its more than an agenda now - its an entire industry where offense is deliberately being taken in order to manufacture grievances.
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Except that there is a push to get more men into elementary teaching. And there is a push to get more men in to other industries dominated by women, like nursing.
You seem to have a very strongly held opinion (at least one that's strong enough to comment about and bash "SJW"s) that is clearly based at least in part on ignorance. I'd suggest learning more - not only will it help you avoid embarrassing yourself by displaying your ignorance, but it might even help you revise your opinions.
Also, side note, one
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I put in a lot of time and effort to remain relevant having mastered three or four languages on my own. If I didn't I couldn't be employed as a programmer.
That's the thing I find particularly odd about the push for girls into CS. Feminism isn't pushing hard on the "manual labor" fields to get women accepted, so I kind of wonder when they get wind of how many certs and/or how being a perpetual student is really required to have a career where you're not simply another code monkey, how much they're going to resent the initial push in the first place.
I'm not saying men don't have this gripe; I have friends in IT (female ones as well) that just want a freaking b