This dev world is still so damn fucking sexist, it's driving me nuts.

"it's so cool seing a GIRL doing this stuff"
"wow you're so tech savy for a GIRL"
"you're too CUTE to be a developer"
"how does it feel to be a GIRL in dev"

Just treat us like fucking human beings for once instead of pretty, empty objects.

You are a dev woman not girl. I don't understand why people would still say girl...

Being a developer has nothing to do with your gender. Anyone can become a developer.

@PonySlaystation probably because I'm only 21?

@marthulu Hmmm... personally I think I say woman for females >17, but as I'm not a native english speaker, it's probably a bit different. 😉

@marthulu The way I read the quotes, it sounds like people are excited for having a female dev around and they exaggerate in their reactions. Maybe they don't mean harm or want to be sexist, but they do come and close that circle from the other side of the coin.

@Qaldim I know most people do not mean any harm, it's mostly caused by the environment that lacks females, causing people to make these awkward comments. but man, im just trying to make the dev world a bit more aware of how stupid they sound

So there's a Women in Tech group and most of the times all they do is exaggerate the achievements of female students.
They make it seem like it's exceptional to have women in technology fields. So then men think that too. Then the things like you said happen. Saying something is special makes it not normal.

But I agree. Men use the special tag & it's stupid also.

It's stupid. I like to think everyone's equally special & thinking that way makes it normal to have women in tech &

@Qaldim There's also many more aspects to this issue I'm not addressing with these 'light-hearted' quotes, but I'll not get into that now.

That's negative part of stereotyping. Politically correct companies overdo it for the exposure and it moves on to people. It will wear down over time (hopefully).

@marthulu I bet you are! I hope not only bad...

@SHA-16384 Yea when it was brainless button pressing and wire connecting..

@-psr Thank you.

@Zennoe Go sleep felix

im gonna break the bubble, i give zero shits about someones gender as long as they do their damn job well enough

I'm a bad guy if I like to work with women? Because sometimes men can be really really boring, mainly when they speak about women T. T

Not a dev girl or dev woman. Just a dev. The developer I happen to look up to the most is female. She is a brilliant developer and an awesome human being.

@PonySlaystation I call her a girl, but that's just because she is quite young and I'm quite old. Nothing wrong with girl until you start using it with a condensing tone.

@marthulu All things that are rare attract curious inquiries and rejection/dejection. Unfortunately woman are much under represented in IT.
I had a similar experience when I was into horse back riding. Was the only boy out of 30 when going to a camp week. So I truly get your frustration (especially a you are met with it far more frequently). Only thing I can say is that I hope it gets more common and once you grow into your role in the industry you generally get more acceptance and hopefully less questions about it.

To be honest I see how something rare strikes curiosity, but some listed are indeed "questionable" of how that would ever work out.

@JoshBent that is the other common response to rare mate. It's where the words like freak and weirdo come from. Also much fear. When (feeling) threatened people often lash out with pity and demeaning comments.

In my experience most male devs don’t know how to actually interact with a female.

no, female developers are just rare and we have no clue how to handle ourselves when we spot one

World's first programmer was a girl. Even the world's best programmers are female. What the poor boys do are desperate approaches to approaching. 😉

Ehat I find very ironic and funny is all these "girlcoding" , "girl entteprenuer", "girl in startups" meetings, conferences and what not.

I always think "what if they had also men-only or men oriented stuff, what then? Who would get angry and start pulling the sexist card?"

But it is true, people still have this mindset when women do not fo certain stuff and are always amused or surprised, then all the stupid comments happen you said.

I think there is a big difference between being surprised by a skill you don't expect in a person and thinking that person just can not have that skill.

I suggest we all pay attention to that small difference, one is just a mindset that can change, the other is plain and obvios discrimination and prejudice.

Note this can happen to an yone bur does tend to happen to women more.

Bottom line: being able to see without judging is a very big sign of intelligence kids. Don't judge.

That's the problem with being the unicorn in a group. Just put them in their place with confidence and you won't hear that shit again.

We had chick in one if my start ups that laid down some serious shade right the first time someone said "ain't you too cute to be a dev? What do you" program" in, lua? "
She just gave him a dirty eye, took the c++ reference off the shelf and said "alright, puts your nuts on the table my nigga, let's play the game."

She knew that thing inside out. The dude apologised and there wasn't a single incident of the same kind again.

Yup, and you can see it even here I’m devRant. “You’re so cool for being a girl who writes code” etc. It’s sad.

but, @marthulu, you have to agree, that girls in dev positions are an extreme rarity. It's more common to see a pro-abortion conservative than a developer who is a girl.

Just look at it from an outside perspective.

Sure, I get that it's annoying, but this does make you kinda special, and as long as this holds true, people are going to treat you kinda special.

In my experience, 2 in 3 companies don't even have girls in their dev teams (if it's small teams). So people working in such companies might have never even worked together with a dev who is a girl.
And sex IS the first thing that is noticed/referred to. "That guy over there", "that girl on the 4th floor on the right". So having "that girl that writes code", will raise an eyebrow, as long as it's this rare.

'You know how to code? Oh, you go girl!' - patronising (male) recruiter

My big sister was the one that got my into programming and showed me how cool it is. She was about 13 I was about 10 now it's 20 years later, she now works at a global French company and I'm starting a startup, I wish she would have joined me...

I find this so strange to hear.

I've just finished working for a dev team that was predominantly female.

In the UK it's different, we take you on the merit of your code, not the shape of your genitals.

I've just shifted into another all male team, didn't even realise until last night... It was no different to me.

Now racism is completely different, old cunts in the dev world will still look down on someone based on the colour f their skin.

The only real difference I notice with having more women in the team is that they refactor quicker than I ever could. There's something about women being more mentally able to multitask, it's a job that requires you to keep 4/5 small tasks in your head.

Other than that, I heard a lot more Hindi on a daily basis... Do all women speak Hindi? 😜

To me, the perfect dev team has a balance... If any of the gents here haven't worked in a dev team with a lot of women before I'd highly suggest the experience. Look out for it in interviews, it speaks well for the company you're going into.

@SHA-16384 you're right, we should go back to war with Germany! For equality! 😜

I am totally guilty of saying the first and the last sentence, but its just because I get really happy when I see women in the IT field. We seriously NEED more women in the field if you ask me. But I guess saying those things works in the opposite direction.. Good to know :)

I'm with @bashlord on this one. I find it really cool to see women in tech, especially when they thrive. I try not to make a big deal about it, but in my head I have a "I'm so proud of you" moment.

Not like it does any good in my head, but if I say it out loud, I could get weird looks. I can elaborate if anyone thinks I'm over the line...

Do you also think women sound stupid for saying "it's so cool seing a guy doing this stuff" when I am knitting, watering plants, minding kids, cooking, cleaning the house, etc? Should I be ranting "the house dutties world is still so damn fucking sexist"?

Next time, just put on your shades, play that "Turn Down For What" tune and get back to your coding. ;)

On behalf of all of the cunts who do this: I'm sorry.

@gosubinit true. The entire world is sexist if you consider that sexism.

We all see sex as a defining characteristic of a person, and we have always done that, and I don't see anything wrong with that. The fact that some stuff is attributed to sex is just a result of a heuristic formed in our brains, as a reaction to the world actually being like that.

I WILL NOT indulge in this guilt-tripping for something that is nobody's fault. When more girls CHOOSE to become developers, then this heuristic will not be formed any more, and there will be nothing special about a developer that's female.

@gosubinit that my fellow man is a very good point.

First of all, I don't know what sexism means. I might be living in a cave (I'm not though, I swear). Does it mean that sometimes you get remarks that are in connection with your sex?

At uni in our group there were 2 girls out of 30. Of course it's unusual for me to see girls as devs. The uni had thousands of girls but most of them didn't want to go for computer science. It's their decision. Net result? Dev girls are a rare sight for me.

Therefore I have an inherent reaction to seeing dev girls. Let me say how cool it is that you're a dev.
What's wrong with me saying that?

Most of it is actually a (hidden) compliment, and men do that because they are generally attracted to women (well most of them). "you're too cute for a dev"? I'm sorry if you find that offensive :)

@ajpaparelli In my experience most male don’t know how to actually interact with a female.

@gosubinit how could they? 9 hours of the day are spent almost exclusively among males, and evenings are spent only with the closest friends (not with strangers who are women).

It's like blaming the Inuit for being racist by staring at a guy from Ethiopia.

@ajpaparelli "...is sexist because of the introduction of the term girl"... Okay, then:

- "How was school, son?"
- "It was okay I guess, and I finally talked to this girl..."
- "Shut the fuck up kid, are you a goddamn sexist again!? Person... SAY PERSON."
- "Uh ok sorry dad, so I finally talked to this person and..."
- "Good boy..."

// Mom barges in..

- "good BOY??? When will you finally treat our kid like a PERSON??"
- Sorry babe...

@NyxMC you must be a white, straight man, who has never faced any form of discrimination in his life. and like i said, there are many more forms of this issue besides these comments.

Umm yes everything she said is sexist because of the introduction of the term girl. Men never hear “You’re really good developer for a guy”. Men hear “hey you’re a really good developer”. Never once in my career have I ever had someone ask “how does it feel being a guy in development?” The op’s third comment about being too cute is something that should never be said in a work environment, never mind the fact that’s approaching creeperville. I don’t see why it’s so hard for people to understand that females want to be treated as peers in the industry instead of being patronized and pandered to because they are females. When you start putting qualifiers in your statements you step away from being polite to being sexist. I used to think this was a problem with the old guard in the tech industry but That is simply not the case.

@mzeffect that analogy has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion at hand.

@marthulu "you must be a white, straight man" - ..... ......
.....
...
.

please read again.

...

do I have to point it out?

do I?

@ajpaparelli but.. It has. Has the term girl in it.

@ajpaparelli I see a slight conflict between you knowing what should and should not be said in a working environment (what about those anyway?) and your age.

Telling a girl she's cute is approaching creeperville? Oh boy... I don't even...

@mzeffect
What on earth does my age have to do with any of this? I’m a 16 year techy not a 16 year old techy.

@ajpaparelli "“how does it feel being a guy in development?”" - just like it would be stupid to ask "how does it feel to be a tall guy in basketball?". It is, however, PERFECTLY NORMAL and EXPECTED to ask "how does it feel to be an average height guy in basketball?". There is nothing wrong in being of average height, and neither is being of average height in basketball, but it's WEIRD, because there are so few.

So whenever a member of group A finds oneself in a group that's made up in majority of members of group B, it is COMPLETELY fine and NORMAL to ask how does it feel being A where most other individuals are B.
This happens absolutely EVERYWHERE.

@ajpaparelli sorry, I was being age-ist

@mzeffect yawn, you seem like you are clever, you can do better than that.

@ajpaparelli I'm flattered.

@NyxMC with that comment i wanted to point out that you have probably never encountered any discrimination in your life, so you wouldn't know what its like, causing you to be dismissive of the comments made.

But hey guys, just imagine being called out in EVERY new place (every new schoolproject, every job, every internship). The same questions/remarks every time. Always the focus on gender. It's getting old, and scares women away as well.

I'm very happy this is stirring up some conversation :)

@AndSoWeCode I wonder by "weird" you just meant "unusual" right? I agree, the distribution of males/females across many careers is not 50%/50%, and it makes indeed people stand out (like the basketball example).

Anyways, saying "wow you're so tech savvy for a GIRL" is indeed being close minded and offensive, it assumes that no girl should be not good enough for tech (specially the one being addressed). The phrasing makes it a unpleasant, innefective and unsuccessful compliment.

Saying
"wow you're a so tech savy girl"
"you're a cute developer"
"how does it feel to be a dev girl"
would sound better I presume, @marthulu ?

@marthulu you assume that everybody has had an easy life just because of sex or race. That is already bending your own statements, that are seemingly against sexism.
You might have grown up in a healthy rich family that got you computers when you were young (I have no actual idea how you grew up, just sayin'), while your conversation partner, which you say is privileged, might have had to clean toilets for a year just to buy his first potato computer and learn programming.

If we play the offensive olympics, it is far more offensive to publicly presume that someone has had it easy just because of their appearances, and you had it tough because, judging by the things you choose to rant about on this topic, someone said "you're tech savvy, for a girl".
I've been called that, except not "for a girl", but "for your age" for example. Should I be offended? Is that what oppression is? Sure, it's a stupid thing to say, but that's it.

@marthulu "just imagine being called out in EVERY new place" - I don't have to imagine. It's happening everywhere to me. Every single day.
I'm an immigrant. I haven't integrated yet. Whatever I do, I will never be spared by remarks like this. But I don't give a flying fuck about them. It's NORMAL. I'm an outsider, and unless this country is going to be full of outsiders, I WILL BE SPECIAL. And people are going to bring that up.

So what about you? You're an outsider yourself. The industry is dominated by males unfortunately. Even more than this country I'm in is dominated by natives. You're an even more special outsider than I am. The only way you won't be one is if you're joined by so many outsiders, that you cease to become one. That's just basic stuff right here.

You, like me, can choose to leave and go back to where we're not outsiders. But we choose not to. Because it's better here.

That doesn't mean that everybody should blend their brains and stop being humans.

@gosubinit frankly, I don't care what people tell me, and I strongly believe that nobody should care.

We're developers!

We're smart people that drive the economy today.

People need us.

There are far more important things to give a fuck about, than stupid automatic behaviour in humans.

Read "Thinking fast, slow". It explains this behaviour quite well, and frankly, after it, it's hard to give a rat's ass about such slips.

Can we care about important stuff now? Please? Are we teenagers, hurt by little words said without thinking during small talk? Or are we adults with a good grasp on our lives and understanding and control of our feelings?

Seriously!

@AndSoWeCode thanks for your thoughtful words, I feel encouraged! of course I know I should suck it up and dont give shit, but we're all still human, and things stack up. and so I rant about it isn't that what this platform is for? to let out our feelings and frustrations about this crazy dev world

@AndSoWeCode well put. I'm also not native to the country I'm in. Took me 3 months to finally get a goddamn bank account even though I had a job and salaries waiting to be transferred.. because of stupid people who were possibly even less native than I was. Did I rant about it? Hell yes. Fucking annoying shit. Was I offended personally? No. There's this neat little quote that I like, it's NOT a message to anyone here, more like a recommended read to whoever finds it worthy of their time:

"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

@marthulu I hope you can get to terms with those people who annoy you. If all they can say is you're a girl so this and that, you can safely ignore them. Otherwise you can make them understand where they're being annoying, if you indulge in some deeper conversation with them. Don't give up on male devs, it's just that according to stereotypes they're especially bad in behaving in a compelling way with women 😃

@marthulu
"you must be a white, straight man, who has never faced any form of discrimination in his life"

You mean like the discrimination in this comment? You mean the discrimination of "we can't hire you because our minority quota is too low?"

I'm a white male and I get that in certain ways I go through life easier than most people, but I'm discriminated nearly every day. Not in the same ways as women and people of color, but I most certainly do get some.

This isn't supposed to be a "feel bad for me because I'm a white male," it's supposed to be a "we all face discrimination in certain forms." And yeah, it sucks that women in tech or auto repair or any of those "male" jobs get singled out, but men in "female" jobs get just as discriminated against.

TL;DR - People suck, humanity sucks

@RiderExMachina preach.

@RiderExMachina yea i noticed it was pretty much discrimination myself 😅 iknow while males are discriminated against as well, just usually a lot less (generally speaking of course)

@RiderExMachina the only way we won't have any incidents like this is if we become exactly the same, with no differences whatsoever. That sounds like a fucking shit world to live in. I like cute girls, and smart girls, and smart cute girls, and hot women, and smart women, funny women, socially awkward smart girls, way out of my league girls, etc. If they all became uniform, just "member of the sex female", I'd rather opt out, order a double scotch and don't give a single fuck about anything. If there's no difference, there's no dynamics that instigate interactions.

@wakazors oh I just love how everyone today who 5-10 years ago labelled us nerds for playing games, is playing motherfucking candy crush and shit like that every free moment they have. The irony is level 9000

@marthulu
Sorry if my comment seemed harsh--I really wasn't trying to be mean--and I'm glad you knew what I meant. 😊

Hmm I say hey It's cool to see a woman dev because It's very rare to see one not because a woman is worse at coding.

@marthulu how does it feel to be a GIRL on devRant ? ;)

When i do the dishes my wife's friends are like:

What a wonderul man. Hes a keeper.

Fucking sexist bitches.

When i keep my kids they call me a babysitter.

Fucking sexist bitches.

When i get things right on the first try， because i listened， they call me special...

Fucking sexist bitches....

@eragonder Yes but it's giving them special treatment rather than it being accepted as "normal" as it should be.

Not picking at you, just trying to help :)

@marthulu haha I know the feeling, I’m Black, 6ft6, with tattoos. Then they see me coding at a coffee shop, and I look up at them and they have that deer in a headlight look.

Then the typical questions start.

What are you doing?
...making a web application
You code?!
...yep yep
Did you play basketball?!
...yep yep
If I had that height I would have been in the NBA!!!
...that’s nice bro
Can’t believe you code?!
...crazy isn’t it....

@marcusp619 lol how typical

"... cute to be a dev"
Boiii... that isn't sexist
At least not that part. Chill lol

MICROAGGRESSION!

No offend and no sexism containing comment, but I think that you might be overreacting just a lil bit

@gitpull Hah yea I've seen that microaggression term alot, which I think is bs. I am not offended by anything I mentioned here, just me ranting about shit I find annoying, just like everyone else. Sexism in dev is still very real though (these comments do not cover all of that ;))

“Bruhuhu, guys are nice to me because i am a girl”

@PreyK Oh we might be treated 'nice', but remember we are also not taken seriously for what we do. etc. no need for belittling.

My office had more women devs than men devs. And this is in India. Interesting.

@PonySlaystation Girl is fine if you also say boy bit when i hear girl and man then that doesn't ring right as it's not equal.

@divil Ah definately not ;p. There's the positive discrimination: more interest from others, people are generally more willing to explain something. But also the negative: not taking advice, checking things you say with male coworkers, etc.

That's weird to say that. I just treat them as a devs as i do with guys, not "a girl who was too cute to code"

Plus we're gonna have the similarities such as bugs that cannot replicate or too much stress to work on a project

I read "CURL"
¯\_ツ_/¯

Most of those are not sexist statements, I'm not seeing the red flag. Poor taste in social humor, perhaps, but you can thank public perception for that.

Devs and IT people in general are always portrayed as basement dwellers with acne, losers, and outcasts with no hope in finding a woman. There's even popular TV shows that reinforce this. This was the case while I was getting into computers, and girls at my school at didn't it as a worthwhile field, they saw the people that were in it.

Fast forward to 2017 and people are all about Devs and IT people, we're now adorable to anyone after we reveal our profession. Because of this, people suddenly see it as an attractive field to get into and are shocked to discover that's it's only a bunch of dudes with anti social behavior and anxiety. So you can excuse those statements made by dudes probably just now being exposed to women with the same excitement and interest as them after being treated as outcasts.

@Wallpaper definitely. However, I don't think dev field is seen as attractive by many girls yet. Especially since it is still filled with many anti social dudes.

@marthulu The anti social part almost comes with the territory. I don't look or act like a Dev, people are usually taken aback by it. There are more men in IT like there are more women in nursing, but there's no outcry over it and certainly no initiatives for men to consider nursing. Either way, our terminal doesn't care what's between our legs as long as the pounding is done with our hands on the keyboard 🤣

@Wallpaper amen ;D

@Wallpaper lmfao the pounding part haahaha

great explaination