Re: Female Programmers-WOT

I know, at most, a dozen female programmers.

aevil - StLouis.pm, runs history.perl.org
boojum - also StLouis.pm (unless she moved)
Jessica - co-worker, uses Perl because she had to get some things done, and she didn't want to do it by hand
Erica - friend (met through NY.pm), learning Perl
Skud - works on e-smith, aussie
Penth - NY.pm'er
Guinevere - NY.pm'er
Kristin - my girlfriend -- well, she programmed until the end of her first semester of college, then decided she didn't want to anymore (now she takes Medieval Studies!)

And then there are the females who frequent this site -- I don't know terribly many of them (kudra, for one).

Why is it so few? Programming has a rather un-glamorous aura around it; we hear too often of computer geeks with glasses and pocket protectors and no social life who sit in front of three terminals, who engage in mindless trivial holy wars about which editor to use and which flavor of Unix/Linux/etc. is best.

(It's not entirely untrue.)

We get a bad rap. But those of us that are predisposed, or ignore the rap, get to love the art. (Ooh, how silly, a programmer calling it "art"? Get a life!)

japhy -- Perl and Regex Hacker

Comment on Re: Female Programmers-WOT

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Re: Re: Female Programmers-WOT by virtualsue (Vicar) on Aug 17, 2001 at 01:22 UTC
japhy, I don't understand why you are coy about listing kudra as a "female programmer" (ewww), but you list your girlfriend, whom you say gave up programming at ~18? BTW, that age is in the bracket where I think a lot of women who ever had a bit of interest in the art of programming drop out. I don't know all the reasons for that myself, and it probably bears looking into (and probably is, quite regularly, by social science grad students). I suppose it may quite simply not be a way of life which appeals to many women except those who feel almost compelled to do it (i.e. those who would have to be stopped* from programming). The rest who studied CS or IT because an advisor told them it's a great career area jump out into sales or marketing at the earliest possible opportunity. If I hadn't laughed I might have been offended by the "females who frequent this site" phrase which followed your personal list of "female programmers" (ewww). davorg's point came to life before my eyes when I read it. I'm into this thread late, because I missed this first time around, but being a "female programmer" (ewww) I felt like commenting anyway. I know you didn't start it - the phrase appeared in the root node. It's just such a crap phrase. I would vastly prefer being called a "girl", or even "hey there, you with the tts". Interestingly, I found this when looking through Abigail's PM oeuvre for something else, which I'll continue looking for now, after taking a few deep breaths. :)	[reply]

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Re: Re: Female Programmers-WOT
by virtualsue (Vicar) on Aug 17, 2001 at 01:22 UTC

japhy, I don't understand why you are coy about listing kudra as a "female programmer" (ewww*), but you list your girlfriend, whom you say gave up programming at ~18? BTW, that age is in the bracket where I think a lot of women who ever had a bit of interest in the art of programming drop out. I don't know all the reasons for that myself, and it probably bears looking into (and probably is, quite regularly, by social science grad students). I suppose it may quite simply not be a way of life which appeals to many women except those who feel almost compelled to do it (i.e. those who would have to be *stopped* from programming). The rest who studied CS or IT because an advisor told them it's a great career area jump out into sales or marketing at the earliest possible opportunity.

If I hadn't laughed I might have been offended by the "females who frequent this site" phrase which followed your personal list of "female programmers" (ewww). davorg's point came to life before my eyes when I read it.

I'm into this thread late, because I missed this first time around, but being a "female programmer" (ewww) I felt like commenting anyway.

*I know you didn't start it - the phrase appeared in the root node. It's just such a crap phrase. I would vastly prefer being called a "girl", or even "hey there, you with the t*ts".

Interestingly, I found this when looking through Abigail's PM oeuvre for something else, which I'll continue looking for now, after taking a few deep breaths. :)

[reply]