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0 pointsAndyKelley12y ago0 comments

That doesn't imply that "love" is a gendered word, it implies that males use the word more.

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7 comments · 3 top-level

sthatipamala12y ago· 2 in thread

I wouldn't call the word itself gendered. The problem is it appeals disproportionately to men (for a variety of cultural reasons described in the study).

It's not in Hacker School's interest to skew their appeal toward certain groups of people for no reason.

peterwwillis12y ago

Personally i'm much more concerned with why "i love programming" appeals more to one gender than another, and would prefer to see the cause of the problem tackled first. Abandoning the wording removes any need to have a conversation about things like gender-leaning language in the first place, further burying the issue.

sthatipamala12y ago

It's a worthwhile question. The referenced study ("Unlocking the Clubhouse") explores part of the issue and is a very interesting read. Take a look!

Unfortunately, the lead time for solving the root cause is at least 1 generation. We will have to use stopgap solutions until then.

dragonwriter12y ago· 2 in thread

It suggests (but certainly does not, as described, certainly establish) that the associating the term with a particular kind of affection for a vocation may be tied to gender, and therefore that suggesting that identifying with the use of that term in that relation as a qualification for a program like Hacker School may be an unintentional gender filter.

Interestingly, I'd never thought about that previously but as soon as I saw a reference to it I realized that I'd much less frequently seen women use the term in that context (with regard to vocational activities) compared to men, so, while I don't know that different word usage by gender is really the issue, I see that it certainly could be, and that it makes sense to avoid that usage in the context Hacker School was using it.

Torgo12y ago

I am not surprised at all a study found that less women say they "love" programming. In my career I have worked with many women, and none of them would I consider less than well-rounded as a person. But I have met many, many males who are heavily skewed toward the "hacking is life" mindset. Nevertheless, the two best programmers I have ever known are women, and they did not identify as "hackers."

Hacking is a culture, not a job description, and in my experience, singleminded dedication to programming is not an indicator of ability. So I guess the real problem with "Hacker School" is that it's a programming school not a hacker school. A hacker (programming) school could never say anything like "you don't have to love programming" because being a hacker is pretty much defined by loving it.

hdevalence12y ago

You don't get to define what the word "hacker" means, though.

schoen12y ago

Following up on something I said further down in this thread, I think the OP meant to use "gendered" in a gender studies sense and not in a linguistic sense. I don't fully understand the meaning of "gendered" in the gender studies sense, but I think the OP meant something like "systematically associated with gender in some way".

I think the intended meaning is basically that there are cultural differences around whether people tend to express their enthusiasm for programming as "love" or not, and so Hacker School now doubts this term is the best indicator of whether a prospective participant has the kind of enthusiasm they're looking for.

It's true that "gendered word" has a totally separate meaning in linguistics, where it refers to the phenomenon where a noun attracts or requires agreement according to a class that the noun is in. In many languages these words need not refer to animate beings' gender at all, and in some languages the noun classes are totally abstract and unrelated to masculinity or femininity, although there's some disagreement about this terminology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_classes#Noun_classes_vers...

Anyway, I suggest reading the OP as saying "cultural differences, often along gender lines, in whether people commonly describe their relationship with programming as love".

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