Writer of "Of Geeks and Girls" responds to some HN comments

http://likearadiotelescope.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/how-the-geek-stereotype-stunts-computer-science/

by araneae • 17 years ago

32 72 17 years ago

likearadiotelescope.wordpress.com

mcantor• 17 years ago

Apparently one of the comments that the author took umbrage to: "Socially mainstream means leaving work at 5pm and going to the pub, that’s what 'normal' people do."

When do "real" developers drink their beer?!

notauser2• 17 years ago

When I worked in software Engineering (big E, giant processes) the developers left at 4:30pm every day except Fridays, when they left at 12:30. (Thanks to flex-time and a 7:30 start.)

That environment was remarkably un-geeky. A median engineer was about 45, university qualified, with a house, husband or wife and kids. They had very little interest in programming but a quiet pride in Engineering.

If you want to write software in that kind of environment you don't even need to mix with the comp sci geeks at university - you can get a masters in maths, physics or any engineering field instead.

joe_the_user6• 17 years ago

Oddly enough or not,

It seems that this environment has had a mix of women whereas the "three-guys-and-a-dog-startup" generally hasn't.

Make of it what you will.

weaksauce• 17 years ago

While coding apparently: http://www.xkcd.org/323/

djcapelis• 17 years ago

Before, during and after work. Sometimes especially during.

unalone10• 17 years ago

Perhaps this is just me being youthful and naive, but I'm astonished here at how many people drink and get stoned before every class. I don't think I'd have ever fully believed that idea, of people just vastly abusing substances and still getting their work done, had I not met people who took shots and smoked a blunt in between every class.

pyre3• 17 years ago

> the study singles out Star Trek memorabilia, comic books and energy drinks as examples

Really? Women are repelled by energy drinks? I've known plenty of women that are/where addicted to energy drinks... Or is it just that drinks like Bawls isn't as 'mainstream' as something like Red Bull or Mountain Dew's AMP drinks. If that's the case, then it's women that are being too discriminating. "He's drinking something that isn't a name brand! I totally wouldn't fit in here!"

substack• 17 years ago

As a male, computer science major, and avid coffee drinker, I too am repelled by energy drinks. That aside, in my experience I see two mostly-exclusive classes of "geek": people who are much more fascinated with producing technology and people who are much more interested in consuming it. Departments should be targeting producers irrespective of gender issues because they make better computer scientists. Increased diversity is a bonus.

javert• 17 years ago

The notion of "people who are much more fascinated with producing technology" vs. "people who are much more interested in consuming it" really strikes a chord with me. I'm in grad school for CS and I've never really been a "geek" except that I've always loved programming and the like. I've always felt "different" from what is normally called a "geek". This is a start at explaining it.

blasdel2• 17 years ago

Bingo! The evaporation of the dot-com boom got a lot of status/wealth seeking drones out of CS departments, but left a lot of the geek-culture asshats that come in thinking that their meager IT helpdesk skills have something to do with CS.

It's the worst with video games: there's the standard "I like playing games, so obviously I'm a CS genius" type that my college friends called 'gamer scum'. At least with the way the big-budget games industry is going a lot of these people are now headed into Art Production where they fit in.

pyre3• 17 years ago

> As a male, computer science major, and avid coffee drinker, I too am repelled by energy drinks.

Repelled as in, "I don't want to be around anyone that drinks energy drinks" or as in, "I don't like to drink energy drinks?"

I find it wildly unbelievable that women would be shying away from Computer Science/Engineering because they are afraid of people who consume energy drinks. There are plenty of other more believable things for them to be repelled by. Are they only talking to women who choose their profession based on whether or not they want to meet their future husband in the workplace (i.e. "I won't find a suitable husband among energy drink consumers")?

I find it hard to believe that 'energy drinks' are associated with 'being a geek.' I've certainly never seen anyone that was considered as 'geek' drinking a Red Bull + Vodka mix, but they are wildly popular in areas. I've certainly never seen any energy drink marketed to geeks in advertisements either.

> That aside, in my experience I see two mostly-exclusive classes of "geek": people who are much more fascinated with producing technology and people who are much more interested in consuming it.

I know plenty of people that do both. My friend/co-worker bought himself a 30" monitor for his work desk (with his own money) just because he was annoyed at only having 2 20" monitors at work (his home setup is 3 screens). He's happy now because he can fit multiple Gvim windows on the screen at a 'usable size.' Yet he has all the latest gadgets (Kindle, iPhone3G, etc). [edit: I should make it more clear that he is a 'builder-type' person that has no love of meetings and would rather 'get the job done.' I really don't think that he falls into the 'people that are more interested in consuming it' category.]

I don't see how those two groups are mutually exclusive.

unalone10• 17 years ago

If you're in an environment where energy drinks are strewn all around, it gives the place a certain atmosphere that's off-putting to certain people — and not just to women. I can't stand the stuff myself.

This isn't necessarily because they hate energy drinks, it's that those in combination with the other things paints a certain stereotype that people find off-putting upon first glance.

pyre3• 17 years ago

So it has less to do with 'energy drinks' and more to do with general dirtiness/untidiness?

trominos2• 17 years ago

"'Socially mainstream means leaving work at 5pm and going to the pub, that’s what “normal” people do,' says one commenter.

Honestly, I fail to see how this sort of argument differs from asserting that black people are lazy or Latinos are stupid."

It's different because, as far as I know, it's not actually true that black people are lazy or that Latinos are stupid (on average). Whereas that comment as quoted is technically (more-or-less) correct.

jacoblyles2• 17 years ago

Former investment banker here. I got the feeling that my ex-coworkers were at the center of the social mainstream. But when I was at the office late on a Sunday night, I could see that they were hard workers with a focus on getting things done when it mattered.

The biggest difference between a banker and a computer geek is that the banker drinks more and has a better looking girlfriend. Both of them work hard when the success of a project depends on it.

unalone10• 17 years ago

Past a certain point it becomes "live and let live". I'm sure the things you like are things that other banker might not be able to stand; similarly, if you tried walking in his shoes you'd find how uncomfortable you found them. So from just what you wrote it sounds like you and the other guy found an equilibrium, where you were both happy with what you had.

trominos2• 17 years ago

Based on the stereotypes I've heard, I'd say that investment bankers are also outside the "social mainstream" of workers.

EDIT: Okay, I sort of see your point. My feeling is that if you consistently work long hours you definitionally put yourself outside of the "social mainstream," because I was thinking of "social mainstream" as "the set of people whose non-work lives are fairly similar to the median".

Whereas I think you're using a definition closer to "people who aren't 'weird'/'losers'". I don't think that's what the original commenter meant, but it's possible. And if that's what he meant, I think you could be right.

[/EDIT]

For the record, I don't (necessarily) agree that geeky people are more likely to do good computer work than non-geeky people. I just think that it's a valid point of discussion, and that in particular comparing the quoted comment to racism instead of addressing it is both incorrect and incredibly obnoxious.

joe_the_user6• 17 years ago

The mainstream works harder!?

My whole love of all things math and computer has been based on the slogan "the other guy works harder, I work smarter"!

If geeks aren't thinking that way, they're losing something.

And like the procrastinator, of course I'll work really hard in order to work smart.

btilly3• 17 years ago

Would your opinion change if you were presented with evidence that blacks are lazy and Latinos are stupid? Would it then become OK to say that about blacks and Latinos?

Let me provide you with some information.

There is a distinctive American black counter-culture. That culture puts down people who put too much effort out for work and say they are "trying to be too white". To the extent that someone has internalized that culture, there will be a tendency to work less hard.

For many years now the USA has been experiencing something called the Flynn effect. Each generation grows up in a more technological environment that pushes children to learn to think better than the previous, and as a result IQ scores improve over time. The effect is so significant that a person who measured as a genius in the 1920s is likely to be considered borderline retarded today.

Many Latinos in the USA are immigrants or the children of immigrants from agricultural countries. These countries have not changed as much as the USA, so people there have not undergone the Flynn effect to the same extent as most American groups. Therefore it comes as no surprise that measurements of IQ versus ethnicity show that Latinos underperform whites on IQ tests. So by our standard measurements of intelligence, Latinos are (on average) less intelligent.

Now that I've presented you with that information, would you say it is OK to say that blacks are lazy and Latinos are stupid? Hopefully not because it is a hurtful thing to say that makes life unnecessarily more difficult for the many hard-working blacks and intelligent Latinos out there. And it is doubly hurtful because there is just enough truth in it for people to take the stereotype to heart and apply it to people who it doesn't apply to.

gaius• 17 years ago

That commenter was me, and I didn't mean it at all in the sense of "normal" people being "inferior", it was simply an observation. The majority of people will finish work at 5-6pm, then go to the pub (or to some other social activity, or home). That's not a good or a bad thing, it's just how it is. But if you want to be a part of "mainstream" social life, then a profession that often keeps odd hours is probably not for you, was my point.

Hands up who's rolled into the office at lunchtime and hacked through 'til 3am... Would you trade that for 9-5 in a blue suit?

mattmanser2• 17 years ago

> The entrance fee to a computer science career is membership in geek culture, and that’s way too restrictive. If any other field had a cultural barrier to entry like that, no one would stand for it.

I find this almost bigoted and hateful. Like the author wants geeks to change their behaviour, to enforce some sort of thought police. For us all to become bland, souless replicas of average joe. So we've no place to fit in anymore.

No thanks.

I wonder if they'll ever do the same study of why there are so few male hairdressers or nurses. Or perhaps so few female plumbers. Same conclusions I imagine. And will the suggest forcing hairdressers to stop reading magazines and talking makeup too?

unalone10• 17 years ago

Dude, have you talked to hairdressers? I have. When I was younger I'd be surprised at how much they were comfortable talking about. We'd talk about cinema and literature and politics and they'd have an opinion about everything. It struck me how these people, who I'd once thought were emptyheaded, were actually smart, well-balanced people who just happened to love their occupation. Then it made me realize that perhaps I was the emptyheaded one for believing in the idea of the "average joe".

Now I am a little bit older — not much older, mind you — and I've learned how stupid it is to believe that anybody could be at all considered average. In various positions I've talked to a slew of people I'd once have dismissed for their commonality. I don't think I've ever met somebody who I'd call stupid. A lot of them you'd think are stupid until you talk to them and realize they've just got a few stupid beliefs ingrained in them and beyond that are as bright as anybody. The more people you meet, the more you realize how stupid it is to sequester yourself away in an ivory tower or a dank basement, to assume that you're somehow an elite being who other people simply cannot understand.

Hell, that's why I became a writer. I learned that to understand others, I had to learn how others understood me.

gloob• 17 years ago

I can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but I sequester myself away in a dark basement because I enjoy it, not out of some idiot notion that I'm smarter than other people.

It's not that other people are stupider than me; it's that other people aren't me. I am under the obligation to act the way they act in the same way that I am under the obligation to have the same favourite colour as them. That is to say, I am under no such obligation. I happen to enjoy different things than they do; is it any surprise that I act differently, then?

Otherwise, I largely agree with you, I think.

btilly3• 17 years ago

Hairdressers spend their lives putting people at ease by talking to them about whatever they want to talk about. There is no wonder that the profession attracts people who like talking about a wide variety of things.

aidenn02• 17 years ago

It doesn't matter if hairdressers are smart well-balanced people for the point of the original study to apply to them.

If most people think hairdressers are ditzes, then that will turn people off from becoming a hairdresser.

Just like if most programmers are fairly normal, well-balanced people doesn't matter. What matters is what a teenager trying to decide what to do with their lives thinks a programmer/hairdresser/any other job "looks like"

mattmanser2• 17 years ago

Every time I get my haircut. When did I mention intelligence? This is all about groups. Talk about attacking a straw doll.

I have no interest in the latest winner of strictly come dancing, big brother, Susan Boyle's latest single. I don't like grime, r & b. I think that the Sun newspaper is little more than compost.

It's to do with a social group. It's to do with interests. We see extremes of this in high school (pg has a great essay on this).

My point was that the author is singling out one 'clique' for their double-think experiment.

anonjon2• 17 years ago

There is more than one potential conclusion to draw from this.

The conclusion drawn here seems to be that geeks somehow exclude non-geeks from certain fields.

Another conclusion would be that non-geeks self-select themselves out of certain fields.

Another conclusion would be that being a geek is still looked down upon in our society, and there is an unconscious effort to maintain status by not becoming a geek. There is a certain air of superiority (and ignorance) conveyed in saying that geeks don't shower.

Another conclusion would be that the traits exhibited by people who are interested in geeky things are related to the traits exhibited by people who want to go into geeky fields.

Geeks tend to be at very least obsessive about things. It follows that they might be better about doing things which require obsessive traits, like writing code. (Or maybe geeks are just better at everything...).

Also, I love the pub.

unalone10• 17 years ago

Can we try a thought experiment? Take the statements you just made and look for generalizations.

"Nongeeks self-select themselves out of certain fields." "There is a certain air of superiority (and ignorance) conveyed in saying that geeks don't shower." "[T]he traits exhibited by people who are interested in geeky things are related to the traits exhibited by people who want to go into geeky fields." "It follows that they might be better about doing things which require obsessive traits, like writing code. (Or maybe geeks are just better at everything...)."

From reading these comments and knowing nothing about you, the attitude that I get from these comments is twofold: You think that being a geek is a good thing (or that geeks are inherently superior), and that there is somewhat of a persecution of geeks going on. The message I read here (which might not at all be what you wanted to say, mind you!) is: "Nongeeks don't want to be geeks because geeks are smarter."

Now, regardless of whether or not that's the case, or even whether or not you believe that, that's the message that's coming out. It's somewhat off-putting and exclusive. In your writing, you yourself are excluding so-called non-geeks; the fact that you're willing to distinguish geeks as a distinct and special category says something in and of itself. That all agrees with the author's conclusion.

I agree with the author's conclusion myself, not because I'm in the field or have done research about it but because it makes sense when you reason it out. The community that's formed around this field has certain peculiarities. The emphasis on comic books and graphic novels and Star Trek and energy drinks that's mentioned, for instance. These are each odd things that lack a distinguishing trait. It's not like the art in comic books is better than art in other media forms, or that the story is better. It's not like Star Trek was a geekier show than others; certainly it's not highbrow entertainment. And as far as drugs of choice go, energy drinks are such a specific sort of caffeinated beverage, designed to force a drug into the body rather than following a so-called natural food flow.

If we were going to go from the assumption that the comp sci field had an even distribution of interests, we'd be hard pressed to explain those certain prominences. Why is there no vodka alongside the Red Bull, no cigarettes or cigars? Why aren't other art forms represented as much as comic books? What's the group fascination with Star Trek? When they're all presented together, they're no longer idiosyncrasies. They have certain traits in common that speak about the people who imbibe them. They're all things obtainable from younger ages, they all have a certain visceral immediacy to them, they're all to some degree static and unchanging. People who drink energy drinks tend to stick with a single favorite; they'll spend years with one drink, unchanging. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that there's a certain comfort in the repetition, in knowing what you're going to get every time.

Furthermore, people with these specific interests tend to have other characteristics. Am I right in thinking you value what people think more than you do what they look like? Or even that you think people who judge others based on looks are acting in a shallow fashion? Studies suggest you like either classic or alternative rock or electronica. Perhaps I could place a bet on your liking Monty Python, or enjoying Firefly? (This isn't you, anonjon, this is the collective "you" of the geeks in the survey. I'm sure not all of this applies to you.)

Along with that, so-called "geeks" favor muted colors and t-shirts. They have particular commonalities in fashion. And they certainly have similar personality traits, which include introversion, arrogance, and short tempers. Not every person has all these traits, but they're frequent enough that we can't just say they're common traits in all human beings. They're certainly specific to this social clique.

The backlash against nerds is almost entirely one formed from individual opinions forming. Perhaps it's unfair that people have decided comp sci majors in black t-shirts who like Star Trek are less likely to be fun or friendly than a random person from another sampling of society, but that's how it's working, and that's the cause for a lot of "geek" bias. It also makes sense. When you spend your time reading anime rather than following sports, certain casual conversations become very difficult for both parties. I've got former friends who're very stereotypical geeks, and I've forced them into social gatherings, and when I listen to the conversations they get into it's cringe-worthy. Either they don't realize how awkward they are, or they do it deliberately in order to justify their social alienation.

So that's what the study is saying. It says, girls who have been shown these standard set-ups see enough cues to make them think perhaps they'd be better off somewhere else. That's entirely logical, isn't it? And the solution would be for our culture to expand and embrace more things, to reflect "normal" society in its diversity and lack of a hive mind. Until then, it will continue to be treated like what it's perceived to be: A bright, socially retarded group that's content with being largely outsiders.

randallsquared• 17 years ago

The message I read here (which might not at all be what you wanted to say, mind you!) is: "Nongeeks don't want to be geeks because geeks are smarter."

I think the truth is closer to: "Nongeeks don't want to be geeks because geeks are perceived as lower status."

And the solution would be for our culture to expand and embrace more things, to reflect "normal" society in its diversity and lack of a hive mind.

Of course, then we wouldn't be geeks, would we? The message I read here (which might not at all be what you wanted to say, mind you!) is: "Geeks should stop liking what they like, and start liking what everyone else likes instead." ;)

anonjon2• 17 years ago

I was using ignorance not in the pejorative sense of intelligence, but in the sense of lack of knowledge about a subject. Someone who would say that geeks don't shower is misinformed (or under-informed).

The point is that non-geeks don't want to be geeks because geeks have a lower social status (at least as perceived by non-geeks). It is perfectly reasonable for an in-group to perceive itself as superior to everyone else, and for everyone else to perceive it as inferior. (In fact, that is pretty much what always happens).

In admitting that there may be such a thing as a geek (which is actually presupposed by both the study and the author of the article, not me), we are also given license to define what it is to be geeky.

Focusing on comic books, energy drinks, and star-trek (or what have you), is focusing on geeky things. Things that geeks are likely to be interested in. This is the wrong thing to focus on, because clearly not every geek likes these things. (I hate energy drinks and comic books).

My whole point, therefore, is that this isn't about intelligence or anything else, rather it is about of set a personality traits that tend to make people interested in certain things.

From this perspective, being interested in Star Trek or enjoying energy drink is not in any way a different indicator than writing a lot of computer code.

What if the article had ended, 'Not only are non geeks missing out on star trek conventions, star trek conventions are missing out on a diversity of ideas and perspectives.'

It doesn't make any sense, as there is no obvious causative direction here. Geek ends up being a statistical clustering rather than a definable entity.

(If you go to a Star Trek convention, do you become a geek? Or were you already a geek for wanting to go to a Star Trek convention? Can I be a geek without going to a Star Trek convention).

I also could just as easily say 'Not only are geeks missing out on people who are not interested in tech careers, the geek group is missing out on a diversity of ideas and perspectives.'

The entire conclusion stems from a solipsistic view that every person is going to be equally interested in a career in technology.

Hell, if I didn't have bad acne, a stutter, poor eyesight, an audible lisp, an addiction to MONSTERBAWLS energy drink, (as well as horrible BO and halitosis), I might quit my job as a programmer and go into marketing.

Or I might just be the most charismatic programmer ever.

pfedor• 17 years ago

I have no opinion about energy drinks, but I think I can explain why Science Fiction and comics are more popular among geeks than general population. Sci-Fi and comic books are two examples of fields of art where the social perception is below the real value of the art. Science Fiction novels are no worse than mainstream contemporary fiction. (One could even argue that SF is now in its golden age, like say romantic poetry was in 200 years ago.) But the stereotypical notion is that SF is junk without artistic value. Similarly for comics.

Geeks have below average ability to conform with social norms and expectations. That's pretty much a definition of a geek. Therefore, a geek is more likely to enjoy a good novel which belongs to a genre without prestige. A person more receptive towards social expectations may be repelled from the same novel because they're aware of the lack of respect associated with the genre.

ax0n2• 17 years ago

I found my wife on a local dial-up Bulletin Board System and she's a fully certified geek. She does WOW raids two nights per week, she digs Fringe, sci-fi and fantasy fiction. She dual boots Ubuntu and Windows 7, and when I was stranded without connectivity and one of my clients munged their IPTables rules, she only needed to ask me the hostname, my username, my password, and if sudo was installed in order to flush the rules.

I think maybe she's the one being discriminating, but she really doesn't want to do geek work for a living. She'd be okay doing data entry (not that it's geeky but it's the geekiest job she's had). She'd much rather do more traditional jobs such as taking care of animals or dispatching emergency responders.

cschep• 17 years ago

your wife sounds rad.

ax0n2• 17 years ago

Thanks, she is!

hugh_5• 17 years ago

"If any other field had a cultural barrier to entry like that, no one would stand for it."

Plenty of fields have cultural barriers to entry. Frinstance, I wouldn't want to be a car mechanic, cuz all they talk about is sport. I wouldn't want to be a secretary, cuz all they talk about is American Idol. And I wouldn't want to be a Wall St trader cuz all they talk about is... I dunno, golf and hookers. Of course I'm exaggerating, but the point remains that these are three fields where I'd be turned off by the culture even if I were interested in the actual work.

joe_the_user6• 17 years ago

Actually,

My impression is that different fields of study are becoming more and more "culturalized". Aside from the example above, there's obviously a whole cultural barrier for any art related activity.

jdminhbg• 17 years ago

That was probably the most egregious line in the article, with the exception maybe of comparing work schedules with racism.

To me, the challenge is finding a field without some sort of cultural barrier to entry.

thaumaturgy• 17 years ago

I'm a little surprised by all your upvotes for this comment. I spend at least as much -- and maybe more -- time with car mechanics, natural gas technicians, secretaries, administrators, managers, electricians, and so on as I do with "computer geeks".

While I tend to find that people from most of those other sectors enjoy talking about a wide variety of subjects, "computer geeks" (those working in the field as technicians or programmers especially) are far more likely to conversationally hover around technical minutiae or other stereotypically geek interests, like sci-fi.

Case in point: I recently attended a professionally-attired holiday dinner party with a corporate client, where most of the employees are scientists or engineers, and many of them are PhD'd in one subject or another. Conversation wandered from ice climbing to traveling to diesel engines to raising kids, and so on. Anything "tech" was strictly verboten.

On the other hand, whenever I meet my geekier climbing buddies, it's usually only a matter of minutes before the conversation is about their latest gadget, toy, or other interesting thing in the field.

ynniv• 17 years ago

I have personally found especially geeky people to be unprofessional and underproductive. Yes there is often associated geekery around computers, but wearing it on your sleeve and looking down on more well adjusted people is counter-productive. The most productive programmers that I know are physically and socially active. My hypothesis is that this keeps you energetic and on target to deliver useful features to your customers.

hugh_5• 17 years ago

I should have added that I'm just as turned off by "geek" culture (which I see as being characterized by a rather obesssive interest in a few pop-cultural artifacts which are really only slightly interesting) as I am by any of the others. I'm a scientist, not a programmer, and this is part of the reason.

defen2• 17 years ago

> If any other field had a cultural barrier to entry like that, no one would stand for it.

I would consider the non-STEM academic fields to be prime examples of ones with massive cultural barriers to entry. However, this does not fit into the standard oppression script, so it tends to be systematically ignored.

unalone10• 17 years ago

I'm curious: What are their cultural barriers? I'm a Communications major, so I'm non-STEM, and I'd like to know what you think the social barriers are. Sports? Fashion?

defen2• 17 years ago

I'm talking about the extreme left-wing bias in the academy - if you want to be a professor at an accredited university in the U.S., it's very difficult to do so if you have anything resembling a conservative slant to your beliefs. To be fair I also should have included professional schools such as law, medicine, business, etc with STEM. It's also not impossible for a right-wing person of exceptional ability to do well outside those fields - Robert George is a famous example. On the whole, though, professors in the U.S. tend to be on the far left of the political spectrum.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

I really don't get it - for signing up for a computer science degree, you first have to pass through a geek room? Or a picture of Spock will be staring down on you from the wall while you make the check mark for CS? Or what is the problem? I don't think many universities are decorated like that, so I don't see the barrier.

One thing to complain about: maths and CS buildings are typically the most ugly ones of a university (the ones I have seen anyway). Just like in later jobs, where IT is often put into the basement... It's as if architects figure that geeks don't care about their environment anyway, so they can just be caged into concrete monstrosities. However, men like that just as little as women.

blasdel2• 17 years ago

We had a stand-up cardboard Jean-Luc Picard

aidenn02• 17 years ago

You missed the point of the study. The things they put in the geek room are things that college students associated with CS students.

Therefore, thinking about the "stereotypical geek" is virtually guaranteed when being put in the geek room. The study doesn't say "are geeks really like this or not" it is more about what an outsiders perception of geeks is.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

But then I am not sure what useful conclusion to draw from that research. Is it even useful research? Without the study I could also have told you that few women like Star Wars figurines. That is why they are associated with geeks...

Should there now be an ad campaign displaying normal looking geeks?

Psyonic3• 17 years ago

You've clearly never been to the philosophy building. If they're lucky, it's in the unfinished attic of the English building.

btilly3• 17 years ago

I can't believe the negative comments about this article. It seems to me to make a rather obvious point fairly well. People tend to migrate towards comfortable social environments, and creating a mess associated with a particular stereotype will tend to attract people who fit that stereotype, and repel people who don't.

Computer science stereotypes revolve around geek culture. That culture is very male dominated, so will repel women a lot more strongly than it repels men. So if you want to increase the number of women, you need to cut back on the amount of geek culture in CS environments.

This seems to me to be obviously correct. But it seems that saying it makes a lot of people upset. Why? Are you afraid that you won't be allowed to be a geek? Do you look around you and get upset at the thought that someone might want you to clean up? What is it?

Let me go farther. I've noticed that many geeks don't want non-geeks around because they think non-geeks are less intelligent and would water down programming. Well certainly there are a lot of dumb people out there. But I've known lots of dumb geeks and smart non-geeks. In fact I'd guess that that geeks are smarter on average than non-geeks, but geeks make up only a small fraction of the really smart people out there. And furthermore I find the average smart non-geek more interesting than the average geek.

So from my perspective broadening the base of people in CS would be a good thing.

hugh_5• 17 years ago

Actually I think the focus on gender is misleading. Excessively geeky environments repel non-geeks, whether male or female. The fact that this particularly results in repulsion of women is just due to geekiness being rarer among women.

Those who say "who cares if non-geeks are repelled" seem to be assuming geekiness and programming ability are strongly correlated, but in my experience they seem to be pretty orthogonal, at least for the type of geekiness which leads to putting up Star Trek posters.

yummyfajitas2• 17 years ago

So if you want to increase the number of women, you need to cut back on the amount of geek culture in CS environments... But it seems that saying it makes a lot of people upset. Why? Are you afraid that you won't be allowed to be a geek?

The implicit "we should cut back on the amount of geek culture in CS" is where the article gets some blowback.

The original article said that women avoid computing because they are intolerant of geeks. The "solution" is to make computing less geeky, rather than to make women more tolerant. Huh?

If white people avoided basketball because they don't like black culture, we'd tell them (rightly) to suck it up. Yet somehow, the author of this article is comparing geeks to racists.

joe_the_user6• 17 years ago

Not quite a fair comparison:

If basketball was a paid profession, like say, carpentry, that a large number of folks thought of as a career path, then effectively making players be within black culture rightly wouldn't be acceptable.

thrdOriginal• 17 years ago

It is one of the more obnoxious traits of the common computer geek to conflate being good with computers with being intelligent. This kind of attitude only serves to turn more people off. So you're really good at what you're interested in, amazing! ... There are just as many "intelligent/dumb" geeks as there are "intelligent/dumb" lawyers/pilots/bankers/et al, they just choose different things to geek out on (ever seen a lawyer geek out over fantasy football stats)?

joe_the_user6• 17 years ago

I agree that programming today has a lot of properties you mention.

What I'd ask is how or why has the 'geek' factor changed the computer field compared to, the 1980s, when there was a notably larger percentage of women in programming.

I think this part of the 'equation' seriously needs to understood if we're going to think clearly about the situation.

charlesmarshall2• 17 years ago

Just as in genetics, diversity is good. Thats not the issue people are having with the article.

The article says that CS should change its culture in order to attract more and become popular, conforming with mainstream values.

If you told Stephen Hawking im sorry you cant have that picture of Spock on your wall, instead you have to have this poster of some pop group because thats what society deems acceptable. Do you think that would be well received?

The point is that if you have an interest in a field then you are tolerant of such idiosyncrasies in order to learn.

coffeemug• 17 years ago

From my highly anecdotal experience, I think the proportion of interesting to uninteresting people is equally low in any given profession. Most computer people focus on crappy sci-fi, most medical people focus on crappy drama, and most women tend to prefer crappy drama to crappy sci-fi.

I love computers, mathematics, and technology. I think I'm pretty good at it. If I stumble on an interesting problem, I prefer to stay home and work on it than to go out. But I can't stand being around most computer people. They drive me nuts with their ridiculously limited interests and a moral pedestal glorying their severely limited subculture. In most other professions people are on average equally boring, but at least they're not on a high horse.

hugh_5• 17 years ago

The best way to be an interesting person is to have a broad range of interests -- that way you can find an interest in common with just about anyone you might talk to.

The best way to be an extremely boring person is to have only one interest and obsess over it non-stop. I once worked next to a guy who only ever talked about rock climbing; no matter what you tried to talk to him about he'd find a way to bring the conversation back to his rock climbing hobby. To a fellow climber he might have been at least slightly interesting, but to me he was so memorably dull that here I am, five years later, using him as an example of dullness.

If you put up a bust of Spock in your office, you're basically saying to the world "Hey world! You know that TV show which maybe you used to like a bit when you were a kid? I think that's one of the most interesting things in the world!" This is generally a pretty good indicator of a fairly narrow range of interests which will make you pretty boring to others.

Anyone who really thinks that a long-defunct TV show is interesting enough to make it a significant part of their identity really needs to start developing a few new interests.

Writer of "Of Geeks and Girls" responds to some HN comments

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