Outreachy Had 41 Interns Complete Their Work This Summer

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Outreachy Had 41 Interns Complete Their Work This Summer

In addition to Google's Summer of Code recently having wrapped up, so have the Outreachy projects that also engaged in various open-source activities over the summer months...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Outreachy-2018-41-Interns

[jpg44]

Many have been critical of Outreachy. If people are going to have a educational program like this, they really should not have any race or gender qualifiers at all. Justice John Paul Roberts said that the best way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating. To eliminate one kind of discrimination only to introduce another is really an unjust idea, its not moving past discrimination. I would suggest just having a general program for people of all genders and races. I've known of people of all races, black, hispanic, white, who can benefit from these programs and who need the help getting careers and lives started. Do people realized how really wrong the idea is that every person of one group is a wealthy and privileged and everyone from another is poor and disadvantaged? It is a deeply mistaken and its just not true. I have seen disadvantaged people from all racial and gender groups. Race and gender qualifiers should simply have no part of these educational programs.

[DanL]

^I was wondering what took so long. Popcorn at the ready when I saw this. Thanks for not disappointing!

[AsuMagic]

I have been wondering... are there any statistics on whether these minorities are really less lucky into getting a job in programming than the average person?
Yes, for example very few women do have a job in programming in comparison to your standard "privileged" "white cis-males". But programming is largely stereotyped as a male thing... does it mean that women who want to are having a much harder time at it? Not necessarily.
Are those other categories, genderqueer, etc. even in a smaller percentage in the programming field than males? (Edit: relative to their population, of course...)
I don't get it.

[eggbert]

internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people.

What about those who identify as cats, wolves, dragons, unicorns, etc? (Yes, this actually exists) Surely they are underrepresented in STEM fields as well. If sex and/or gender is a social construct then why isn't species? Seems rather non inclusive of Outreachy to deny trans-species a chance to participate.

[You-]

But programming is largely stereotyped as a male thing...

Before the age of mass computing programming was stereotyped as a female thing as it did not involve manual labour. Look at world war 2 and shortly after, many of the top programmers were female (because the men were needed to kill each other).

[schmidtbag]

I have been wondering... are there any statistics on whether these minorities are really less lucky into getting a job in programming than the average person?
Yes, for example very few women do have a job in programming in comparison to your standard "privileged" "white cis-males". But programming is largely stereotyped as a male thing... does it mean that women who want to are having a much harder time at it? Not necessarily.

The stereotype is strong enough to cause a feedback loop. Tech-related jobs (not just in computers) are so male-focused that females either don't attempt to pursue them, or, they frequently get challenged with things like "you're a woman, do you know what you're doing?" or "can I get a man to work on this instead?". This in turn discourages women from working these jobs, which only strengthens these problems. So, I imagine the purpose of Outreachy is to break the trend. Sure, it's literally discrimination, but if we are to get more women/diversity into tech fields, there isn't really another option. You and I might think "well if they're qualified then why not hire them?" but there's a large percentage of the population who don't think that way. I personally even know of women who prefer a man to fix their machines.
The irony of this whole situation is there are so few women who work in programming that you're not even sure if this is a real problem. I'm not criticizing you, but rather highlighting that there are so few female programmers that you don't have enough data to know why that is.
Ask any female programmer, repair tech, car mechanic, plumber, engineer, architect, etc if she has been undermined, questioned, or rejected due to being female and I assure you, she will say yes. I have met several like this myself. The trend doesn't seem to be stifling.

Are those other categories, genderqueer, etc. even in a smaller percentage in the programming field than males? (Edit: relative to their population, of course...)
I don't get it.

That I'm not sure about, but, they get a lot of job discrimination regardless of their career path. So in other words, I'm sure they're at a disadvantage to being hired, but not specifically to programming related jobs. So the way I see it, the lack of these people in tech jobs is because they're rejected as a person, not because they're assumed to be un-skilled.

[Luke_Wolf]

The stereotype is strong enough to cause a feedback loop. Tech-related jobs (not just in computers) are so male-focused that females either don't attempt to pursue them, or, they frequently get challenged with things like "you're a woman, do you know what you're doing?" or "can I get a man to work on this instead?". This in turn discourages women from working these jobs, which only strengthens these problems. So, I imagine the purpose of Outreachy is to break the trend. Sure, it's literally discrimination, but if we are to get more women/diversity into tech fields, there isn't really another option. You and I might think "well if they're qualified then why not hire them?" but there's a large percentage of the population who don't think that way. I personally even know of women who prefer a man to fix their machines.
The irony of this whole situation is there are so few women who work in programming that you're not even sure if this is a real problem. I'm not criticizing you, but rather highlighting that there are so few female programmers that you don't have enough data to know why that is.
Ask any female programmer, repair tech, car mechanic, plumber, engineer, architect, etc if she has been undermined, questioned, or rejected due to being female and I assure you, she will say yes. I have met several like this myself. The trend doesn't seem to be stifling.


That I'm not sure about, but, they get a lot of job discrimination regardless of their career path. So in other words, I'm sure they're at a disadvantage to being hired, but not specifically to programming related jobs. So the way I see it, the lack of these people in tech jobs is because they're rejected as a person, not because they're assumed to be un-skilled.

Someone never watched this documentary:

[schmidtbag]

Someone never watched this documentary:

What does that have to do with what I wrote? It doesn't prove, disprove, or contribute to anything I said. The discussions of that video are a different topic altogether: that's focusing on the underlying reason why men and women tend to lean toward certain jobs. At least from the chunks of it I saw, it doesn't have anything to do with people who are seeking a specific type of career and are actively discouraged from doing so.

[Weasel]

Before the age of mass computing programming was stereotyped as a female thing as it did not involve manual labour. Look at world war 2 and shortly after, many of the top programmers were female (because the men were needed to kill each other).

This is bullshit. That's not programming, that's just executing and being a dumb CPU. Not sure I'd actually call that a good job for women to be proud of, seeing as they've been completely replaced long ago by superior hardware.