> Firstly, the article was very sexist [...] a thinly veiled pulp piece of sexist journalism [...] a propaganda piece

Even if the article is framed in a way that's not to your taste, the choice here is (1) celebrating how cool these sisters are vs. (2) angry denunciation leading to flamewar #3238. The latter is not a win for HN.

If you can't turn off the ideological rage here, where can you turn it off? And if you can't turn it off at all, then it's not really discussion, just bile. Good discussion, the interesting kind, requires the discipline to resist mechanical triggers and respond to the most alive details in a piece, which in this case is clearly the story of the sisters and what they have to say.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538481 and marked it off-topic.

Maybe this is coming from a generational gap, but your experience does not mirror mine at all. I went to an engineering school where women in CS were either assumed to be a management major or people assumed that they were taking the easiest courses available. I've had my wife answer questions for people thoroughly and correctly, and had them come to ask me the same question 20 minutes later and trust that my answer was right.

I've talked to women who left computer science, not because of the difficulty of the courses, but because of the attitude that men at our university had towards them. The data supports this, take a look at the charts of women in CS over time.

And honestly, talking to women older than me, a refrain I hear from nearly all of them is "I'm not a math person". I had a relative in her 80's with a math PhD who would not tell people because she thought it was "too manly."

My coworker, who got into tech because she thought it was the only way she could stay in Seattle, frequently says "I'm not a coder." She just did a code review of one of the projects she's working on that is significantly better than any of the other work I've seen coming out of QA or DevOps at my job.

Your wife is an anomaly. So is mine. It doesn't take much effort to see that in our field.

>take a look at the charts of women in CS over time.

You mean the chart of video game growth over time?

This might be a bit of a stretch but it has rung true with me and many other people. We all became interested in technology and computers because of video games. Our interests in video games transitioned to taking programming courses in high school and college.

Maybe Minecraft will change the industry before any of us can cook up a good solution to the gender gap.

It seems fairly established that profession with highly unequal ratio of men and women tend to have a minority gender with a much higher exit rate than the majority, caused by the majority harassing the minority until they assimilate, quit or switch profession.

The next step should be to ask why women working in a female dominated profession are harassing the men in the same profession, or why men working in male dominated professions are harassing women. Maybe if we could figure out a good answer to that, we could turn the tide of more work professions becoming gendered with unbalanced ratios.

I do not think this seems fairly established at all. I have friends who are male nurses, friends who are male teachers, and the type of behavior they dealt with on a day to day basis was not harassment, they did not deal with coworkers who were constantly checking them out, they did not have people doubt their competence. Were people less quick to invite them into their groups? Sometimes. But they were still able to cultivate friend circles without an actively hostile percentage of the population.

The one place that I agree with you on this however, is childcare. I've dealt with a large amount of bullshit while staying at home with my newborn, and male caregivers are typically assumed to be incompetent.

What kind of study are you referencing there? I quoted a study commissioned by the Swedish government, which in turn referenced a study that looked at work culture in professions with unequal gender ratios.

Did you friends mention how children to men who take up female professions get teased in school because the job choice that their dad took? How their spouses don't want to tell friends what their partners job title is. How male nurses get question like "are you not a man, why are you a nurse?". People who walk up to a male midwife and accuse him of being a pedophile, ready to punch him? Read any of the multiple news article on how male preschool teachers do not feel safe at the job, feeling like they are under constant accusation by parents and co-workers? Same articles that talk how they dislike being the "representative" male, always chosen to do "male" stereotypical job activities?

But more importantly, the data don't lie. Male teachers and male students that are studying to become a teacher exit the job profession in rate about 450% higher than a female counterparts. Are we going to use the same old arguments that its something genetic that a male teachers starts working and after a year or so decide leave the profession?

I think you're really underestimating these strong women. The title is not misleading because of this point:

"I was one of the first few girls on the Georgian team in IOI and I was the second Georgian girl to win a medal."

It doesn't matter if they are 2nd not 1st place. Bottom line is that these strong, awesome women are setting a great example.

Regarding IOI, that's a common misconception people have about high school olympiads: "The top 50% of the contestants are awarded medals, such that the relative number of gold : silver : bronze : no medal is approximately 1:2:3:6 (thus 1/12 of the contestants get a gold medal)."

> There has never been a myth that women can't code.

I've seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears perfectly competent female programmers being patronised by male programmers of a similar skill (who in turn do not patronise other males that way). You're basically setting up an unusual situation, where someone has to literally say "women can't code" to qualify, when in reality, women are frequently treated as if they're not as capable as men in our industry.

It's great that your wife is making her mark, but that doesn't mean there aren't problems that affect others. Similarly, there's been articles here on HN about how there were more female students in CS of your wife's uni era, but that these numbers dropped off precipitously in the 80s and 90s.

I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that men are better at programming or are you saying that no one is saying that they aren't?

> Can anyone point me to a link where anyone (other than a feminist) has said this?

Seems odd to tie this to being a feminist. I would hope all commentators on HN are feminists. What is your definition of a feminist?

> There has never been a myth that women can't code.

I don't think anyone says women "can't" code. I would say in most universities in the US, you could reasonably argue there seems to be more barriers to women majoring in CS than men for many reasons.

edit: For the people downvoting me, it would be great to explain why the downvotes as opposed to participating in a discussion.

You're most likely being downvoted because you misunderstood the parent post.

Saying "you can code even if you're a woman" is incredibly patronizing. It was never in question.

If I started saying, "Well, I think everyone can code, even red-haired people", it'd be negatively worded against red-haired people.

Hey, have you ever heard a politician bring something up under the guise of defending their opponents?

Like maybe say "I do not believe in these allegations about my opponent being born outside the United States. And even if he isn't born in the US, it's not relevant. We should talk about his policies, not about my opponent being born outside the US."

Indeed. That's because "X occurs, even if Y" means something like, "In spite of the expectation that X doesn't occur because of confounding factor Y, X occurs anyway".

So, your argument is "no one has ever said men are better at writing programs than women"?

Not only am I not arguing (and thus don't have an argument), but even if I were, that would certainly not be my argument.

I was explaining why the comment was getting downvoted.

It is, however, interesting to see how you yourself are adopting a very similar tactic to the one I talk about in the post you replied to. Simply fascinating.

OK, I'll try to be more explicit.

> Saying "you can code even if you're a woman" is incredibly patronizing. It was never in question.

This isn't true. Tons of people question this!

Are those people's opinions respectable?

I know people who question the earth being round. Who question the moon landing. Does that mean the matter itself is "in question"?

I guess I phrased it pretty vaguely huh? Fair enough.

Just out of curiosity.. what barriers?

Here's one for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat

I'm sure if you Google, you can find much better explanations than I am able to provide.

"Failures to replicate and publication bias" as a subheading on that page.

> I would hope all commentators on HN are feminists.

I would hope so too, but the empirical evidence is against us.

I think people are operating under different definitions of feminism. It's sort of an "if-by-whiskey"[1] thing. If by feminism you mean not discriminating against (or in any way thinking less of) women, then practically everyone on HN is a feminist. And many –including myself– would argue that if that's what you mean by feminism, then the term doesn't need to exist. We don't have a term for a non-racist. Why should we need a term for a non-sexist?

On the other hand, if by feminism you mean rather strident and angry views being put forth by some self-proclaimed feminists... well then I would say most of HN commenters aren't feminists. And I would also say I'm glad for that.

Really though, this whole topic is radioactive. It's best to stay quiet or use a pseudonym when discussing it. Otherwise, you're bound to make enemies.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey

>If by feminism you mean not discriminating against (or in any way thinking less of) women, then practically everyone on HN is a feminist. And many –including myself– would argue that if that's what you mean by feminism, then the term doesn't need to exist. We don't have a term for a non-racist. Why should we need a term for a non-sexist?

Hmm, along those lines, why would we ever need/have needed terms like "civil rights" or "abolitionist"? I mean, why should we need a term to designate being against racism, or against slavery?

A lot of people, especially here, believe that matters of equality are solved by treating peers as equals regardless of differences, rather than praise the differences, put them on a pedestal and give the people handicaps for being different.

I'd also love to see all that "empirical evidence". HN is one of the most respectful communities in tech I've frequented. Sexist remarks and the like tend to be downvoted and flagged.

As a minority, I think it is incredibly valuable to see people like me succeeding.

>HN is one of the most respectful communities in tech I've frequented.

I don't think I've ever seen a thoughtful discussion here when the topic relates to gender or race.

> I think it is incredibly valuable to see people like me succeeding

I feel the same way. In fact, most people here feel the same way, regardless of whether they are part of a minority or not. We all love to see people like ourselves succeed. It's incredibly empowering to feel that "this can be you". It doesn't just apply to careers, but in any situation where we feel we are faced with a challenge (this is why, for example, weight loss communities like /r/loseit are so successful).

Displays of success don't have to be contextualized as "they are successful because they are a minority", or "it's a big deal because they are a minority". Doing this cheapens the accomplishment and (I think) that's what rustynails was getting at.