Basically they’re scared and intimidated. Here is a person who is beautiful and intelligent and has made something of herself and that highlights their own inabilities.
I think sexism is only part of the problem, they’d have a similar response to a male model who had a successful tech career.
I’m involved in technology and race mountain bikes on the side. Other than the occasional “it must be nice to be fit” comments from the neckbeard techbros, they’re not as openly hostile to me as they are to women who are in tech. There is definitely a strong sexism part of the equation.
I’m sorry to tell yuu this bro, but nobody gives a shit about mountain bike racers. I don’t think a bunch of poorly socialized boys who were proficient with computers were ridiculed by mountain bike racers when they were young. Good looking people on the other hand…
What kind of school did you grow up in to not have the nerds vs athletes click battles?
That’s certainly a part of the problem here, but let’s be honest: how often do tabloids or other low effort media publish such “inspirational” stories that turn out to be absolute bullshit. Like the 10 year old who invented some quantum stuff, but actually his father just let him play around with some tools in the lab.
This story here unfortunately fits exactly this pattern, but apparently just happens to be true.
Even when they’re not factually bullshit, the rhetorical framing is often ick. I’m disabled, and something that I, and a lot of other disabled people hate is “inspiration porn”. It’s patronising as hell, and most frustratingly, if you try to call it out, people get extra offended because they refuse to see how otherising and infantilising people isn’t the same as advocating for them.
Not everything needs to be fact checked.
Whether this is real or fake, it doesn’t matter. I’m never gonna encounter her in any way, there is no relevance in it. If I read stuff like that, I think “good for her” and move on.
What’s the point of being super sceptic of something that has no impact on you?
It’s not necessarily being “scared and intimidated”.
We’re just conditioned that when someone at the top of their field talks about their hobbies / interests / skills outside that field, it’s very often a very shallow level of skill. Why? Because being at the top of your field in almost anything takes a lot of focus. You don’t really have time to develop other skills / hobbies.
There are countless examples. Actors or athletes who release music albums that are just awful. Celebrities who write really amateurish novels which would sink into obscurity if they didn’t have a famous person’s name attached.
Making the problem worse, often the entourage of those rich and famous people is filled with sycophants who heap praise on the celebs. That leads them to believe that they really are good at their hobbies.
Then there’s the fact that the world is so hungry for celebrity gossip and special interest stories that “journalists” often get a tiny nugget of information and use it for the basis of an entire article. So, if a celebrity mumbles something about liking their backyard barbecue, it will spawn countless articles about how that celeb is an expert at the art of BBQ, they might release their own branded BBQ sauce, their skills were endorsed by some celebrity chef, etc.
So, given all that, it’s perfectly reasonable to be skeptical when you hear something like “This [insert celebrity type here] can [insert hobby here] like an expert!”
You know damn good and well that if this was a hot dude that could do these things, the comments towards them wouldn’t be nearly as hostile.
This is a complete strawman, and pretty much completely wrong. If you look at the heroes of the IT community, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Gabe Newell, or the lesser known Terry A. Davis. These are not conventionally attractive people living a glamourous lifestyle.
This does not mean this post is not sexist, but the strawman of “if this was a male they would idolise him” is just complete horseshit, and in no way better than assuming a “pretty little woman” couldn’t do programming.
No, no. The vast majority of people who are interested and good at computer science are men or male. It is the truth. The world is also replete with women who say things like this, but basically can only write hello world to the console.
But exceptions exist and people who don’t fit the common stereotype absolutely deserve to be allowed to do what they’re good at.
Lol, I’m sure. They invented the integrated circuit, the instruction set, and most modern day programming languages. But all of their achievements were hidden by mean, jealous men.
Typically, smart and powerful people have the wherewithal and know-how to not let that happen, let alone en masse. That’s part of why we might consider them smart.
The reality is that there were many female computer operators. Engineers and inventors, not so much. A few exceptions, but they were, as I have said, the exceptions.
Motherfucker, women used to be the vast majority of programmers. A woman was the one who led the team that wrote the code to get to the moon. She also coined the term ‘software engineer.’ So don’t give us that bullshit that the vast majority that are good at computer science are men. And no, the world is not replete with women who claim they can choose but can only print to the console. Where the fuck have you come across that?
People like you are the main barrier for women getting into programming.
Absolute moron. I knew damn-well that you were going to mention Hamilton at some point because every simping imbecile does. Every single exception to the general rule, that males are more interested in IT in general, is proclaimed across the world as though it disproves said rule. Look, these women are smart, capable and deserve all the success they’ve attained. That does not mean there is not a general rule.
People who are generally smart and capable should not care about my approval to enter into programming. They’d do it because they love it, not for someone’s approval. Frankly, if some woman doesn’t enter into programming because of something some rando like me said online, I very much doubt she was much interested in it to begin with.
