HippyCentral

Disclaimer: I’m male. I have all the classic male characteristics, I have hair in all the wrong places, I pee standing up, and I’m unable to tell if clothes are wet or just cold.

I’m also a father to two daughters, and have spent most of my life in the company of females – from the grandmother who raised me to the various friends and girlfriends and (one!) wife who polished off the rough edges.

As a kid I was never a typical boy – I wasn’t interested in what all the other boys seemed to be. I was smarter and smaller and less aggressive than most, so picking fights didn’t appeal. I have the co-ordination of a drunk Bambi on ice so most sports were nothing but an opportunity to humiliate myself and be yelled at by my peers.

Because of this, I spent most of my time hanging around with girls. Most of my friends were female. As most outsiders do I regarded my (male) peers with disdain – but girls always seemed to be smarter and more interesting and less violent (with some notable exceptions).

I mention this not to imply that boys are brainless thugs, or to elicit any sympathy (or scorn) but simply to highlight the point I’ve been around females a lot. In much the same way I can tell what my cat likes without being feline, I have a fair idea what constitutes “fun” to the non-testicle-clad variety of human.

And here’s the thing, mostly it’s the same as the boys. The exceptions seem to be the stereotypes that both sides of the gender gap are forced into and told to accept (e.g. playing with dolls and kicking balls at each other).

Recently I’ve been involved with the CoderDojo movement. For those who don’t know, CoderDojo provides free coding clubs to kids from age 7-17. I was 12 when I first started to code by copying (and correcting) code from Input magazine – CoderDojo provides the contemporary equivalent to that experience. If you’re vaguely technically capable (or just interested) get involved, you won’t regret it. </sales pitch>

I digress. While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my work with CoderDojo one thing is painfully obvious – we have more boys than girls coming to the sessions. That’s despite 5 of our 8 regular mentors and volunteers being women (plus some guest mentors who are mostly women).

Unfortunately that imbalance is also reflected in the professional world. There’s a massive gender gap in software development, which makes absolutely no sense to me. All the skills needed for most roles in software are cliché “girl” (and definitely present in the girls I remember from childhood) – yet somehow girls seem to show little interest. There are many movements attempting to fix that, but so many of them seem to miss a key point. Fun is fun, no matter what your gender is.

As an example, some of our female mentors were looking for some challenges our Ninjas (kids attending the Dojo) could do. A lot of what we do is based around Minecraft, which seems a big draw. One suggestion was to make a rainbow out of code. Nice simple idea. The suggestion was that it would appeal to girls more than Minecraft.

Why?

As a male I am not allowed to challenge this – after all, what would I know? Well, given my previously explained credentials, quite a bit. Unfortunately I don’t wear a badge saying “I’m male but I’ve spent a lot of time around females”, and I do wear the badge of physical male characteristics so it’s very hard to argue with a woman about what a girl might like.

This cartoon sums it up: Lego Friends

Once again, I see creeping sexism in the form of “positive discrimination” and feel powerless to do anything about it because of my gender. We need to break down these stereotypes – especially in the people who are at the forefront of trying to break down the stereotypes! This is a call to all women/non-Nuts reading men – please stand up for real equality, and stop assuming that girls like what the TV and your parents told you they like. They’re humans and like the full range of human activity, from games with explosions to pretty landscapes, just as much as boys do. You have the responsibility to provide role models that they can look up to – regardless of gender.

Here’s the simple truth: girls don’t need puzzles with pink ribbons, ponies and rainbows to attract them – they need to see that other girls are taking part so it’s ok to be interested even if you sit down to pee.

It’s not all doom and gloom though – one campaign who seem to have got the balance right is code.org – they use cartoon characters to encourage kids (of both genders) to try out coding puzzles. Their recent use of the “strong female lead” characters in Frozen is spot on, no condescending gender bias, just straight up character led puzzles, presented by capable women who code. Let’s have more of this, and fewer girls-only rainbows, please.