Being a “dumb” girl in Computer Science
Full disclosure: I'm a working female software developer, blah blah blah...> I want to be that girl who no one thought she could, who had all the odds against her, that everyone thought was dumb, and yet she becomes incredibly successful in computer science. Then I want to turn that success around and use it a pedestal to expose every wound, every failure, every painful vulnerability I have, even with my hands trembling, because that is what I believe is what motivates women and gives them the strength and personal recognition of ‘if she can do it, so can I’, which then lights the spark to explore the field and helps women find their inner-strength to go for it.I think this is a great sentiment, but....and maybe I'm just not hanging out in the right parts of the internet or whatever...but I see women writing about these meta-topics of "being a female programmer" far, far more often than any actual technical aspect. Maybe they just aren't upvoted to the top of HN or r/programming, heh. I've had a hard time articulating why I feel so prickly about promoting specifically "getting more women into tech", because I feel like it's starting to become this giant show pony. I think it's great that this lady is going into this field, but I feel really weird about this characterization that CS is supposed to be so super scary and women need special hand-holding and encouragement to attempt it.I started programming when I was a kid because I wanted to make stuff. Nobody told me it was supposed to be hard or supposed to be for boys or whatever. I think we're doing a huge disservice by promoting this idea that programming is some super elusive thing - if we want more women in programming, then let's talk about how cool it is to build stuff, instead of how we can be role models or whatever. Just the opinion of one "woman in tech", I don't speak for anyone else but myself.