[LAU] [Fwd: Re: Fuck your sexism]

[Louis Gorenfeld]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 6:07 AM, James Harkins <jamshark70 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2013 11:16 AM, "Louis" <louis.gorenfeld at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's entirely possible that we'll see attitudes change in upcoming
>> generations as more people are addicted to computers and catch the bug to
>> want to create software.
>
> Unfortunately, the trend in the industry is toward mobile devices without
> built-in developer toolkits. Maybe that will change eventually, but for now,
> you need a computer to write for iOS or Android, and computers will, sooner
> or later, become specialist tools. This makes it less likely that people
> will discover the fun of tinkering with software, rather than more. Apple
> seems to be steering in this direction, by locking iOS and charging for the
> developer tools. A concrete impact in SuperCollider-land is that now, only a
> small handful of developers are building and testing in OSX

I don't see how that could be the case. XCode is still a totally free
IDE, and you get all the tools necessary to build all kinds of apps
except for iOS stuff. It's not like Windows where Microsoft has
threatened to pull everything but Metro from their free version of
MSVC and otherwise crippled the free versions.

>> Btw, there's a similar gender discrepancy in electronic music (as far as
>> I've noticed), and that requires no math... There's more going on here than
>> sexism, afaik.
>
> You might not need to work directly with complex math formulas, but audio
> engineering is highly technical. If someone feels discouraged to pursue
> technical skills (because of social bias, say), then audio engineering won't
> be a friendly place as soon as we start talking about filters' frequency
> responses etc.

Right, I think getting into technology is maybe discouraged for women,
which is a shame. Or, as a woman I met at a party put it, "I got into
videogames because I was too young to know girls weren't supposed to
be into it".

Of course, when I was a kid, I was just flat out into computer music.
I wanted to create, and with a computer, you could have an entire band
at your fingertips. The technical skill followed.

> We all win if
> we find ways to eliminate social biases that can cause that to happen.

Right, and that's my main point. Of course, by definition, I think a
true "geek" will pursue something they like regardless of whether it
has society's stamp of approval.

What we need are more stubborn non-conformists.

I'd also like to put another point out there: I was at a super bowl
party at a bar a couple weeks ago, and the gender ratio was
surprisingly even. I don't know how many people on the list watch
stuff like this, but there was no woman on-screen who wasn't reduced
to a sex object. The entire program was aimed squarely at dudes.
However, this kind of sexism didn't discourage a relatively large
number of women from being interested in these sports. IMO, if you
look at mainstream society, it shoots down the idea that women aren't
interested in technology because of sexism in the workplace or even
necessarily school. There is something else going on, and it's
happening much earlier in peoples' development.

-Louis