The official hospital report recorded: "injuries sustained while attempting to read someone else's regular expressions."
These days, I spend most of my time convincing people that ODSM is not an add-on level to Halo, trying to convince people that entitlements are not hand-outs of money but important technological elements of information security, and building virtual machine demo images at about the pace of a boy with a new set of Legos on Christmas Day. Coding is just another tool for my job.
I do have a co-worker who is a woman, and she tells me plenty of stories in line with this. She's got I think a Master's in Computer Science, and the customer will just talk like she doesn't know anything, or she's not even in the room, which is impressively rude, given the fact that she is frequently the tallest person in the room.
So, help me with corroboration or a contrary assessment: what caused these ridiculous lines? I was told by aforementioned Soviets that it was done to subdue the people.
Thank you for your insight. You command an interesting mind and heart.
Maybe women will understand why men get unhinged when they see women travel in packs all the time to the ladies' room. I think your narrative would be more upfront if the individuals decided to meet separately and then announce it, but you're describing politics here, not sexism. The men's room may have been a convenient dividing line. If another man was antithetical, it would have been "outside for a smoke" "upstairs to get something from a printer" or related.
The code review story, hey, I've made that mistake but never by gender. The lesson I learned was to just politely ask "excuse me, where are you with your skill level? Oh. It's your code. got it. Pardon me." And on the other side of things, I once had a guy with a PhD in computer science remove some OO code of mine and replace it with three static code branches in the repository.
I guess what I'm saying generally is that sexism is less common. Differences in the way people think is more common, and differences in the way people think because they are different sexes is the stuff in the middle we need to respect as not blatant, just incidental. Room for everyone to understand each other more.
Now, how about the ones who go on and on about their code? Allison in Dayton, Ohio: your IDXML framework was worth bragging about! I've told a lot of people about it, too.
My advice: celebrate the women who succeed in IT/computers. Leave the ones who suck to figure things out for themselves, and tell everyone on the outside of IT/computers to, in this case, read 500+ comments instead of 1 article by sociologists.
When I've worked with small children in church care programs, I've always insisted on having a female helper. At a minimum, it resolves the "trip to the bathroom" needs, but additionally, it avoids the appearance of impropriety, however insane that may be as a personal accusation.
Hey, you might be in the BSA: any chance there's a Merit Badge in the Girl Scouts for computers?
I think what's really happening is conversations get started, like in a hallway. Anything longer than a couple minutes, I swear, if I was in a stall, I'd probably shout "hey, guys, take it outside, please. I'm workin' here." If I ever catch someone on their cell phone having a casual conversation (unless they are trying desperately to have a difficult conversation in private), I will ritually consider making flatulent, throat-clearing, or expectorating noises to communicate their location. At a minimum, I'll give them a puzzled, offended look.
I don't know where you are where a transsexual appearing female is actually attractive. It has been my observation that transsexuals are emotionally troubled, and I'll back that up with the APA's DSM II materials. The APA took it out of DSM III+ only on the protest of the gay rights crowd, not because they were the least bit wrong on the subject. The transsexual was probably overlooked for reasons other than appearing gender.
I'm not without my compassion, but to undergo intense surgery just because you're convinced you should have been born "a man" or "a woman" is not accepting who you are. And, you know what? That translates to poor self-image. I really, genuinely feel for people who are struggling like that. But, denying that there isn't a poor self-image, some level of emotional pain or suffering, that's not compassionate, that's being selectively observant. How you address the issue is another matter entirely. I remember there was some article on Slashdot about being able to locate "closet" homosexuals on social media sites by feeding in data such as who their friends are, to determine probability that they are homosexual. One thing that homosexuals have on heterosexuals is that, on the whole, they have love and compassion figured out, because they need it more, and have built a tight community around it. That did not require a research grant to figure out.
So, on topic, here's my theory: women dislike IT/computer science because it is thankless, grueling, demeaning, and without the right "titan" spirit, emotionally damaging. I'll put forward the argument that emotional balance is harder for a woman because of their hormone dynamics, and they wear thin more easily in this field, and either back out of it completely, become a heartless person (there's an example above with totem poles) and deny their nature, or they work very hard to find an excellent life balance and actually thrive.
If I've gotten any of your background right, I'm going to suggest you not abandon your passion for technology, and just choose something a little less brutal, like technical support. Your hours are fixed, you will face challenges, but they will not drain you because you will have peers to lean upon for input, until you get more proficient. Leave the influence of young, capable female minds to the men and women who are driven. Wok for five or ten years, prove yourself, then look at teaching. I regard teaching young minds as a sacred job, not a bin for half-hearted left-overs from a degree program who wanted a soft place to land.
My apologies to those in technical support who do go all-out. I've met a few of you, but you know you are the exception!
On the subject of women in computers, I've noticed only a few categories:
I am always pleased to meet the exceptional, talented American woman. With men, obviously I see talent and mediocrity, regardless of origin. If you are a talented woman, regardless of where you are born, please commit time to volunteer at and American school to speak to promising girls in your local schools. There is obviously a cultural problem at work here. If women want to solve this, they can. I will not get in their way. In fact, I will help, but I can only do so much as a man in this situation.
Personally, I think they should go ahead and launch it. The amount of money wasted in the hundreds of people running amok in Florida is outstanding.
"Just think of a computer as hardware you can program." -- Nigel de la Tierre